Ra's Domain
by Nadie2
Summary: In this timeline there was never a rebellion in Egypt. Earth has always been under control of the Goa'uld. Women are property, and technology is limited. A resistance fighter, Jack O'Neill, buys a young scientist so she won't suffer a worse fate. A young Samantha Carter is less than thrilled. Janet, Jacob, and Sha're have their own stories to tell in this world.
1. In which Sam and Jack are Married

**In this AU****,**** the Stargate was never buried. Therefore, Earth has lived forever under the control of the Goa'uld. This has affected both our level of technology, and our cultural development. This world is tough. It's going to be a lot darker than most of my stories. Janet and Jacob will be far more damaged than is typical for their characters. Daniel is quite happy as a polygamist. And Sam is very young and naive. If none of this is your cup of tea don't read.**

Jack O'Neill glances around himself carefully. Mere humans aren't supposed to catch onto Goa'uld surveillance techniques, but Jack is no ordinary human. He figured out the concept of a camera when he was twelve.

He knew cameras were a way of saving sights and looking at them later. You had to make sure there were no cameras around before you did anything mildly subversive, or even odd. If you didn't, you didn't live long, and worse, you risked the whole resistance.

Seeing nothing that would compromise the resistance, he lifts the trap door and enters the basement.

"Jack!" Walter exclaims, "That Carter girl published another paper."

"Eh? What about?" Jack asks. He knows that Samantha Carter was a true genius. Unfortunately, she was a strictly 'by the books' scientist. She only studied the few subjects that the Goa'uld encouraged humans to study

"She designed a new naquadah detector. It's too bad that paper will probably be the last thing she ever publishes," Walter adds.

"What?" Jack says. "She's young. She's got years yet to publish."

"She's nineteen, and her father can't put off her marrying any longer," Walter says.

Jack's stomach falls. "Who's bidding?"

Jack hates to think about wife auctions. He's only actually attended one of the things. That was to secure his wife, Sara. Secure her officially, at least. He'd secured her heart long before.

He'd never told anyone, not even his closest friends, not even the resistance, that he'd actually wooed his wife. It'd felt right; the romance, the secret romance. He wasn't supposed to want that. He was supposed to own women, to control them. He'd never wanted power over Sara.

"I think the main bidders will be Jonas Hanson, Meredith McKay, and Pete Shanahan," Walter says.

The beautiful and brilliant young scientist spending her life with any of those men doesn't sit well with Jack. Jonas and Pete had a harem apiece. Jack wasn't exactly sure how many wives each of them had, but he was sure it was more than decent. And Meredith... well, if he acted as badly as he talked, he'd be crueler to his wife than most.

"What day is she up for action?" Jack asks.

Walter looks at him, surprised, "Are you planning on re-marring?"

"She would be a powerful asset to the resistance," Jack defends.

"She seems like she'd be a good mother for Charlie as well," Walter ponders.

Jack wonders if he should reveal his intentions. Explain that he was viewing it more like an employee relationship than a wife. He was pretty sure he could never marry again, not really marry. Sara's death had almost destroyed him.

The Carter woman would be a powerful force for the resistance. And he'd be damned if he was going to let that sweet innocent thing be feed to those dogs.

"I think it's good, Jack; it's about time that you moved on," Walter says. Walter had watched his friend nearly be destroyed by the loss of his wife. And after a year, the grief was still palatable. "The auction is tomorrow night," Walter says.

"You can cancel the recon mission?" he asks.

"Of course," Walter says with a smile.

-0-0-0-

If her mother were alive, she could have given Samantha the pre-auction advice. She would have told her all the things that mothers have been telling their daughters down through the ages.

You don't dress up for an auction. An ugly woman, she's bought for her ability to work. A beautiful woman, she's bought for what she'll do in the bedroom.

You take a little ash from the fire place and rub it under your eyes, and you'll make yourself look tired. You skip your weekly bath. You don't brush your hair for a few days. You wear baggy clothes that give no hint to the form below. Men won't want to take a risk if they don't know what they are buying.*

But Samantha doesn't have anyone to tell her these things. These were secrets that no woman would ever tell a man, for fear of making them ineffective. And Sam's mother hadn't survived her brother's birth. If her father were typical, if he'd had three or four wives, one of them would have taken pity on the gorgeous teenager, and told her the secret. But her father had married no-one but her mother. Even in the seventeen years since her mother died.

So, Samantha unwisely went to the action in her finest attire. She had a good four years on the other woman at action, but she surpassed them all in her beauty.

The women paraded before the crowd. Jack's flinched. This pageantry seemed wrong. He had a feeling that this was not the way this should be done. It was the only way things were done though. He hadn't seen a better way on the few planets that he had traveled to through the god's eye.

It was time now for the pre-auction. Jack moves over to Sam's father. Jacob was a good man. He didn't work with the resistance. In fact, he was a high ranking official within the Goa'uld hierarchy. But Jack had studied his work enough to know that some of his "accidents" and "failures" were systematic and saved thousands of lives. He had also discovered some of the more sneaky ways that Jacob had saved people.

"I'd like to make a pre-auction offer on your daughter," Jack says, sitting next to him.

Jacob's turns to Jack, broken-hearted, "She's my only daughter."

"I know, and she deserves more than those creeps who intend to offer a bid," Jack says.

Jacob sizes him up critically, "How do I know you are any better than those creeps?"

"Listen, sir, I want her to do research for me. That's it," he says.

"What?" Jacob asks surprised.

"I'll offer you enough money that people aren't going to wonder why you accepted the bid, even though I know you don't care about the money. At least, I wouldn't, if she were my daughter. I'm going to give her own bedroom, and freedom."

"You have a lot of wives?" Jacob asks.

"Just one, and she died," Jack says.

"I'm sorry," Jacob says, in a voice that allows Jack to guess more about Jacob's feelings toward his own wife than any research could tell him. "Do you have any children?" Jacob asks.

"I have a fifteen-month-old son," Jack says, "But I'm not getting Samantha as a nanny."

Jacob takes a deep breath, "I'm trusting you with my daughter, the most important thing in the whole world to me. Do you understand?"

Jack nods. "Here is the offer," he says, slipping a piece of paper to Jacob.

"This is double what women go for," Jacob protests.

"And yet it's not even the beginning of what she's worth. There isn't… money enough to buy a human."

Jacob's body language didn't change. He's spent his life in smiling defiance. Jacob could tell that this man, with ideas like this, must be part of this resistance. He'd seen the number of resistance fighters who were killed each year. Granted, a portion of those were falsely accused, but still, being a member of the resistance was a good way to decrease your life expectancy.

"You'll be careful with my daughter's life, won't you?"

"I'll do my best to keep her safe," Jack says, knowing he can't make any promises. He hadn't been able to save Sara. Although, separate bedrooms would at least ensure at least that Samantha didn't die in childbirth like Sara had.

"I accept your bid," he says.

He walks forward, and motions his daughter to come forward.

-0-0-0-

She's disappointed. She was waiting for this day for a long time. She wanted it all. She wanted to hear her bid go higher and higher as she found her worth. She longed for the anticipation and mystery of her who husband would be until the last second.

Not only was Samantha deprived of a chance to show the world how amazing she was, and to hear the highest bidder, but her new husband was kind of old. She had a lot of questions she wanted to ask, but her husband hadn't invited her to speak. It was a serious breach in custom for him to offer her no information on himself. She deserved, at the very least, his name and the number of wives and children that would be in her new home. But it wasn't as if she could ask for it.

She just follows her husband, one step behind, as they walk through the streets.

It's the good part of town at least, she notes. Perhaps the silent bit had been high. Her new husband turns, so quickly that Sam slams into him, into a walkway that leads to a house. It's smallish, but from the outside, at least, it looks well-kept.

He opens the door to reveal a woman who is perhaps a year or two younger than Samantha herself. The dark-skinned woman is round with a baby, and is carrying another child who is somewhere between a year and two. Samantha has never been very good at predicting children's ages, but she guesses it's a skill she'll soon acquire.

"Thank you for watching Charlie, Sha're," Jack mutters.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your new wife?" Sha're says with a smile.

"Sha're, this is Samantha. Samantha, this is Sha're," he says.

"My husband is Dan'yel, they are… well, I don't know quite what to call our husbands. They are friends, but yet they argue all the time. In any case, they spend a great deal of time together."

"So you are not his wife?" Samantha asks in shock.

Both woman look to Jack to see if he is going to answer this question. He shows no inclination to do so.

"Sara - his wife - died," Sha're says, handing the child to Samantha.

Sam's heart suddenly fills with fear. Is she now responsible for a child? Of course, that is part of what being a wife is. She just didn't expect to start being a mother tonight. Especially without the help of other wives to show her what she is doing.

"Come to Daddy, baby boy," Jack says, taking the child from her arms.

His wife must have just died, she thinks to herself. He seems to be taking care of his own child. There is no way that a man would do that for long, unless he had no way of securing a wife for himself.

"I live four houses to the right," Sha're says to Samantha. To Jack, she says, "He's fed, and changed, and just waiting to be put to bed."

"Let's get you to bed, then," Jack coos to his son, kissing him.

"Do you want me to do that?" Samantha offers.

He looks up at her, surprised. "No, he's my son," he says, before disappearing down a hallway.

Sam stands awkwardly in the house that is now hers. She feels as if she should clean something or cook something or do something wifely.

She walks into the other room, and sees the fire is almost out. She puts a log on it.

She isn't hungry, but she thinks he might be, so she starts mixing up biscuits like her mother used to before she died.

"You don't have to do that," his voice says from the entryway, startling her.

"This is what a wife does," she offers, confused.

"Yeah, but I just want you to be a scientist," he says, "You'll have your own room."

She stands there silently for a second, "So, you got me as a slave."

***These are all strategies employed by female slaves in America pre-civil war. **


	2. In which Sam falls for an O'Neill

**Authors Note: Wow, I posted the wrong story yet again. This is the correct one. Sorry! (Do I get a ditz award or something at this point?)**

**Another note. I was reading a history book the other day, and it turns out their was actually some Middle Easter country in Greek times that did auctions much like this one. There is an example of art accidentally intimidating life!**

"No, not as a slave. You can be whatever you want to be."

"Ok, I want to be a wife," she says, moving closer and trying to kiss him.

He pulls away. She searches his eyes, confused. She figured he just needed permission. Some token that could ease his guilty conscience.

"I guess I didn't think this through," he says. "Just because you open the prison doors, doesn't mean that anyone will leave."

She isn't sure she likes this comment, it feels a bit like an insult. "If I do not cook or clean or care for children, what will I do?"

"What you did before. Research."

She stares at him critically, "You want me to research for the resistance?"

He isn't sure how she could figure it so quickly. He knew she was brilliant, but he didn't know how brilliant she was. "How did you know?"

"You wouldn't want a researcher unless you benefited from increased mine or agriculture output, or were part of the resistance. If you were in charge of the mine or agriculture, we'd be on a different street right now."

He smiles. "I know I don't have a right to risk your life without your permission. But I swear to you, Carter, I will do anything I can to keep you safe."

He isn't what she thought the resistance looked like. When she was a little girl, she'd played resistance and Jaffa like all of the other children. She'd always been the resistance; after all, being the underdog was more of a challenge. But when you played resistance, you dressed in black with a mask. She'd somehow expected that she'd know the resistance as soon as she saw it, even though she knew that was ridiculous. If the resistance were that easy to find, they would be instantly killed.

"I'm not as afraid as I should be," she says bravely.

Jack remembers when Sara found out that he was in the resistance. He'd already won her heart, and figured it was only fair to tell her before they were married. She'd cried, and begged him to leave the resistance. Sara always thought she'd lose Jack to the resistance.

And maybe she had. Not completely, all at once, through death, like she'd feared. But how many times had he snuck out of their marriage bed to do the business of the resistance? How many lazy rest days had he worked through? How often had he been gone for weeks at a time to place she didn't even know of? If he'd known how little time he would have with Sara, he would have listened to her plea.

But Carter isn't Sara. She's not begging him to quit the resistance. She's not afraid. He'd known that she was amazing, but he hadn't realized exactly how amazing she was.

"Carter, let me show you to your room," he offers.

She moves the pot off the flame, and nods her head, and he takes her down a hallway. When he opens the door, it whines in protest, obviously not having been used in a long time.

The room is nice enough. He had at least shaken the dust of the blankets, even if the dust went no farther than the floor beside the bed. He'd attempted to sweep the dust from the dresser as well, but he'd missed the corners. There were flowers cut from the bushes in the front laid on the dresser.

"I'm sorry, it isn't much."

"It's beautiful, but I really would prefer your room."

"I'm sorry, Carter, I ought to have asked if you wanted the gift I tried to give you. It's too late now. This is the life we've got to live. So you might as well make the best of it. You've a trunk coming from your fathers?"

Sam nods her head.

"All right, then," he says, walking out of the room.

She stands in the room for a few seconds. But there is nothing to unpack, and nothing to explore. So she follows him back to the main room.

He is cooking her biscuits.

"You don't have to do that," she says.

"If you're, hungry I will make you food," he says. "And call me by my name."

"I don't know it," she says bashfully. She suddenly wonders if she ought to know him. She searches her childhood for some memory of him.

"I'm sorry, Jack O'Neill," he says, extending his hand to her.

She tries her new name in her head. Samantha O'Neill. Mrs. O'Neill.

"And what do you do when you aren't fighting the Goa'uld?"

"Technically, I'm a professor."

Her eyes light up. "What field?"

"Literature."

Her face turns disappointed as quickly as it lit up.

He suddenly feels the need to defend his choice, and speaks before he remembers how unwise it is, "If you only knew the messages, secrets, and IDEAS, they put into those things!"

"Nonsense! They burn subversive books," Samantha says.

"Ah, only if they are smart enough to read books! If they knew about metaphors or alliteration or symbolism, they'd burn most of the books that have been written! But their brains don't work like that. They are a straightforward people who understand force and fear and truth. They don't understand secrets and spies and lies."

"What are spies?" Samantha asks him, never having heard the word.

"Well, mostly they are fictional. There was a writer… years ago, who wrote a fictional story about humans who won a war against Goa'uld by sneaking around and getting information on them. His name was George Washington*. Of course, the books were banned, but there have been people saving banned books since the beginning of time."

"Are you a spy, Jack?" she asks.

He stares back at her. It's a title that Walter bestows upon him when he delivers a particularly useful hunk of intel. It's a word that the new recruits whisper in awe when he gives them their first bit of training. It's the word that Sara whispered like a swear word when he slipped from their bed late at night.

He shrugs. "We say 'member of the resistance'."

"Well, words aren't that important."

"Try telling Daniel that."

"He's a big fan of words?"

"He's a linguist."

"Does the resistance need a lot of linguists?"

"Daniel isn't part of the resistance. Neither are his wives Farida and Hosna. Sha're _is_ part of the resistance. He has no idea. The sad thing is, I think Daniel _could_ be part of the resistance. The things he says sometimes… I think he wishes there was a resistance, but he doesn't even believe in it."

"So why don't you invite him to join the resistance?" Sam asks with a shrug.

"You don't just invite people to join the resistance. If you are wrong about them wanting in, they could have you killed."

"So, you took a chance on me," she says. Then she looks in his eyes, "No you didn't, because if I told on you, you'd just say something worse about me, and I'd be the one killed. They'd never believe a wife over her husband."

He shakes his head.

"What does Sha're do for the resistance?" Sam wonders. "I can't imagine a woman being particularly useful to the movement."

"Actually, our movement has a lot more woman doing useful things than pretty much anyone out there. These woman, they aren't given a chance to use their talents anywhere else, so they come to us, and we give them a chance to use their talents. Sha're works mostly as the delivery person. She does these social visits that include the depositing of packages all over town. She also watches Charlie when I'm gone. I couldn't go anywhere without her help. But our unit of the resistance has only one doctor, and she's a woman."

"Why would the resistance need a doctor? If you guys got hurt, you could just go to the healer."

"If you need treatment for a staff blast, they are going to figure out you are part of the resistance."

"You've been shot by a staff blast?" she asks.

"Obviously not a direct hit."

"I didn't know you could survive any kind of a hit with a staff weapon."

"That's because you've believed the propaganda of a million years," he says.

She stares at him as a new world opens before her eyes, "Why did you marry me?" she asks.

He debates for long seconds how much truth he is going to tell her, "I couldn't stand the thought of you marrying one of those that wanted you. I just… you're too good for them."

"And you wanted me to do research for you," she prompts.

"Yeah, well, I hoped you would. But if you don't, I'm not going to be mad."

"What do you want me to research?"

He shrugs, "What are you interested in?"

"The Goa'uld have sent me requests. They won't anymore, now that I am married with a child to care for."

"So, if you could research anything in the world, what would you want to research?" he prompts, smiling as he realized that she never thought about what she would do if she was free. That it is really that unimaginable.

"What does the resistance need?"

"Ah… weapons, shields, surveillance, surveillance blockers, and really anything that makes us smarter than the Goa'uld, provided that we can hide it. You know, of course, that being smarter than the Gou'ald is the fastest way to get yourself killed."

She nods her head slowly.

"You biscuits are done," he says.

"I only made them because I thought you might be hungry," she confesses.

"You would have made a wonderful wife," he says with a tone of sadness.

A knock at the door causes Charlie to cry.

"Jack, can I please get him? I know he's your son, but… he's probably the closest I'm ever going to have to a kid. I want to… help raise him."

Jack nods as he goes to get the door. Sam goes Charlie's bedroom. Most of the house is pretty simple, but this room is over the top. The walls are covered with color, and paintings. The furniture is all soft and bright, and it's bursting with toys. The room is a lot bigger than Sam's, and she suspects it's bigger than Jack's as well.

"Hi, Charlie," she says with a smile.

"Dada?" he asks.

"Your Daddy is in the other room," she tells him.

He stands up in his crib and reaches for her. She isn't sure what he wants until he says, "Up."

He's soft and warm in her arms, and he snuggles close against her with his sleepiness. "Charlie, you need to go back to sleep," she tells him.

"Kay," he says drowsily.

She suddenly knows she has to rock him back and forth, so she does. He grows heavier in her hands. Sam looks down at his fat red cheeks, and his puckered mouth.

"Oh, my Charlie," she whispers feeling like she needs to claim him.

She slowly lowers him back into the crib. He stirs, and opens his eyes halfway. She rubs his back, and the eyes close. She's fallen in love with the little boy.

Sam doesn't want to leave the room. But she can hear a trunk being pulled down the hallway. Her dad is here.

She closes the door. "Sammy," her father says, hugging her.

He has a huge smile on his face. Sam has a strange feeling that this is all a lie. Suddenly she feels like she is going to cry. Does she have to lie to her father for the rest of her life? Or would Jack mind if she told him? No, it's a risk. If he found out it's a fake marriage, he'd find out that Jack was part of the resistance. She was almost positive that her father wouldn't turn Jack in, but almost positive wasn't good enough. She wouldn't risk Jack's life.

"You've told her?" Jacob asks, glancing at Jack.

Jack nods.

"Sammy, I hope I made the right call. I was trying to… protect you. I wanted something different for you. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe you could have loved one of them. Maybe I stole that from you."

"He knows?" she says, looking to Jack in shock.

"I told him before I put the bid in," Jack says.

"It was a big bid, honey, you can rest assured in the fact that the whole town is talking about how much Samantha Carter went for in the auction," Jacob assures her.

"You shouldn't have done that," Sam says to Jack, blushing.

"You're worth every penny, and more," Jack assures her.

"Well, your trunk is moved in, now is the time when the father-in-law scoots," Jacob says.

"The reason for that is gone; you're welcome to say, Jacob," Jack offers.

"Well, Samantha probably wants to get her stuff moved in," Jacob hedges.

"It's ok, Dad," Sam says warmly, "I made some biscuits no-one wants. Would you like some?"

"My daughter's first meal as a wife, why not?" Jacob says.

***Well, if he wasn't a soldier****,**** why not a writer?**


	3. Concerning Loinclothes and Lace

"DaDa!" the call comes.

Sam wraps a bathrobe around her sheer nightgown. She'd brought it for her wedding night. She thought it was the kind of thing that her husband might like.

But now, she figures she should keep it under wraps.

She walks into Charlie's bedroom. He's already standing in his crib. When he sees her, he grins. The love of a child is easy to win. The love of a man, she is beginning to see, is a bit harder.

She picks him up, and he melts into her shoulder. "Hi, little man," she says, bouncing him.

"I'm coming, Charlie," Jack says, stumbling into the room. Her eyes wrack in his body. His nearly naked body. There is a loincloth around him, but even that is… slipping. She finds herself cheering for gravity, and against her husband's ability to tie a knot.

"Sorry Carter, I didn't know you were up," he says bashfully. "I can take him."

"I'm fine," she assures him, while her heart is doing an interesting tap dance. Once, when she had just crossed from childhood to girlhood, she had gone to the watering hole too late, after the women had left. She'd seen men bathing, and even they were more dressed than her husband was right now.

"I should probably go put something on," he says. Then she notices him staring at her. The robe has slipped, and a toddler fist has pulled the shear fabric away so only thin lace protects her breast from her husband's eyes. And he's looking, and he's enjoying.

"I should probably get us some more covering sleepwear today," she offers.

His eyes go to hers, "I hear the Amish* shop has some pretty good stuff."

Her husband has a sense of humor.

She shifts the child higher on her hip, and pulls her nightgown back up.

"I'll go put on some clothes, and make you breakfast," he says. He leans forward slightly, and then stops, embarrassed. He is used to leaning forward and kissing his wife. And for one second, he'd confused Samantha with her.

He doesn't miss the sympathetic sorrow in her eyes, but he turns from it.

"What do I do with you while I get dressed?" she asks the baby. She moves her hand onto his bum. It's wet.

She tries to remember back to when Mark was in diapers. But her brother is only two years younger than her, and she can't actually remember. She glances around the room, and sees a dresser that is broad and padded. Then she reaches for a clean diaper. She barely remembers how to fold a diaper, and Charlie's squirming doesn't help, but she wrestles him into the diaper before too long.

"No!" Charlie screams, swatting at her.

"Carter," Jack says, "I usually take him to the bathroom before he gets dressed."

"I'm sorry," she says. She should have known this. How could she have reached adulthood and never learned to take care of a child?"

"It's ok, Carter," he says with a smile, "I'll take him."

She passes the child to him, and wraps the robe more tightly around herself. Then she follows him to the bathroom. It's one of the modern ones with a toilet which drains into the backyard.

Her husband must be rich; but then again, he'd have to be to waste a whole bunch of money on a wife that doesn't share his bedroom.

Jack holds Charlie up by his armpits over the bowl. "I can take him again," Sam says, holding out her hands.

"It's ok, you can go get dressed," he says.

"Right," she says. Until today she never realized exactly how much work went into combining two lives into one. Well, in this case, three. She heads to her room and throws on a modest dress; she's already given him enough of a show. Then she pulls her hair into a quick bun.

She hears sounds coming from the kitchen. Jack is holding up his son with one hand, and mixing a batter with the other hand. She isn't quite sure what part is more of her responsibility, the cooking or the child care. Maybe she should just try to do both, although, she wasn't actually that confident in her ability to do either.

"Ok, Charlie boy, you'll play on the floor now," Jack says.

"'Kay," the boy agrees.

"And stay far away from the oven," Jack says warningly.

"'Kay," the boy repeats as he crawls over to a chair. He uses the chair to stand up, and then walks over to the other end of the room.

"What are we making?" she asks.

"Do you like pancakes?" he asks.

"Yes," she says.

"That's good."

She finds a pan and warms it on the stove. He drops a bit of butter on it, and she swirls the pan to distribute it.

Their symbiosis grows as the meal preparation continues. Their arms brush, and overlap. And they don't need words to plan anymore. Already they are a team. It isn't long before the table is set, and breakfast is upon it.

"I have to do some work for the resistance today," he tells her, "I wish I didn't have to go in on your first day here. But it was supposed to be yesterday, and I moved it so…"

"You could buy me."

"Yeah," he mutters. "I'll drop Charlie off with Sha're on my way."

"Why?" she asks, sounding wounded.

"You don't want him hanging around you all day," he says.

"Jack, I like Charlie," she tells him. Then she looks down, "I understand if you don't trust him with me, though. I mean, you did just meet me."

"Carter," he says, catching her eyes and giving her a crocked grin she recognizes from his son's face, "I trust you. I just didn't think you wanted to watch him, and I didn't want you to HAVE to watch him."

"Oooo!" Charlie demands, as he shoves a fistful of pancake into his mouth.

"Pancakes," Jack says to his son, before explaining, "He says 'oooo' when he wants to know what something is called."

Charlie reaches out a hand and grabs onto Sam's wrist, smearing it with butter. Sam grasps onto his tiny hand, and they swing it back and forth a few times.

"Ooo," Charlie demands.

"What?" Sam asks.

Charlie breaks his hand free to points at her, "Ooo," he demands.

"What do you want him to call you?" Jack asks.

Sam wants to say 'mommy'. But a part of her knows that Jack wouldn't be able to accept that right now. In fact, Jack might never be able to accept that. "Sam."

"Am!" Charlie declares. A warm feeling spreads through her chest at his wide grin.

"That's right," Sam assures him with a grin.

Charlie shoves the last handful of pancakes into his mouth, and Sam and Jack begin a wordless dance that is cleaning up the kitchen after a meal. When Jack hands Sam the last plate and she puts it into the cupboard, they stand frozen for a moment. Both of them feeling that they want a bit of contact. Both of them being unwilling to be the one to initiate it. So Sam just puts it in the cupboard.

Jack turns away, and leaves without another word. He wasn't expecting this. He wasn't planning on actually having feelings for his new wife. She was ten** years younger than him, for crying out loud! And he'd really believed that Sara was the only woman he was ever going to love. If love didn't last forever, what was the point?

He couldn't feel anything for Carter. He couldn't, because he loved Sara, and he wouldn't betray her. Four hundred and thirty-two days had passed since Sara had died, and he'd thought about her for every single one.

Sam is almost out of the door with Charlie in her arms when she is met by Sha'uri coming in.

"Hi," Sam says.

"I'm sorry, were you going out?" Sha'uri asks.

"I was going to pick up some things, but its fine. Nothing urgent," she says.

"Well, I was coming to pick up Charlie," Sha'uri tells her.

"Oh, you don't have to watch him anymore," Sam explains.

"That is what I thought you'd say," Sha'uri says, "Jack was all worried you wouldn't want that responsibility. But I wanted that responsibility, and I figured you would too," she says, running her hand over her stomach.

"Is that your first?" Sam asks.

"Well, my first. Daniel's fourth."

"Wow! I guess I just assumed you were the first wife?" Sam asks.

"I am," Sha'uri says, looking down.

Sam feels like she just put a foot in her mouth. Lack of children was probably a huge deal for Sha'uri.

"You want to go shopping with me?" Sha'uri asks cheerfully.

"Sure!" Sam says. She was worried she wouldn't have any new friends in her new world of wifehood. Wives and maidens had nothing to do with each other outside of the family unit. It's not like she had all that many friends before. After all, most of her friends had left for wifehood long ago.

"Hey, Charlie," Sha're says as they begin to walk.

He hides his face in Sam's shoulder.

"You're shy around me already? I was your second-favorite grown-up just yesterday," she mock-scolds.

"Charlie! For shame! Say hi," Sam says, worried that Sha're is going to feel like she stole this child's affection. She doesn't want to lose a friendship before she even gets one.

"It's ok, kids are fickle at his age," Sha're says, extending her arms to Charlie. Charlie jumps over into her arms, and hides his face in her shoulder.

"Should you be carrying him?" Sam asks.

Sha'uri turns to her, "Probably not," she says, handing him back.

"Are you excited to be a mom?" Shau're asks Sam.

"Yeah, I didn't think he could win my heart so quick," she admits.

"So what do you have to buy?" Sha're says, because by this time they've arrived at the shopping district. Sam is sort of pleased to know how close she lives to everything.

"Pajamas," she admits.

Sha're stops, "He requested it? I thought Jack was a better man than that. You're just married. He should be falling all over you even if you're dressed in something ridiculous."

Sam cheeks burn, "No, it just occurred to me that I might want some nice warm pajamas for winter."

"Ah," Sha'uri says knowingly. The two walk together for a few more steps in silence. "You know, Daniel got a full scholarship to college. A scholarships with perks, you know what that is?"

Sam shakes her head.

"He got a gift certificate for a 'starter wife'. He ended up spending quite a bit of his own money in order to get an upgrade to me."

She smiles.

"I was flattered, until I found out he viewed me as a research project. I'm not from Earth, in case you haven't realized. And he wanted to know about my culture. I was sixteen years old, and he was only eighteen."

Sam stares at her in surprise. She knows there is going to be some kind of a twist in this story. Sha'uri's belly proclaims that she's not a research project to her husband anymore.

"So, what happened?" Sam asks.

"I seduced my husband," Sha'uri says with a laugh. "Jack may have got you because you're a brilliant scientist, but it only has to stay that way if you want it to. Some men, they need permission. Our society, it tells men they can take whatever women they can afford. Some men, they don't like that. They want you to volunteer."

"I wouldn't know how to begin," Sam says, blushing again.

"Come now, it's not that rare a problem. Surely your mother included some of this in your pre-marriage speech."

"My mother died when I was just a little girl," Sam admits.

"Well, your father's other wives."

Sam shakes her head.

Sha'uri looks at her, "Well, I guess I get to give you the speech then."

"Not here," Sam says, blushing. There are no others on the street right now. But it's still public.

"Ok, first we'll go shopping, and not for woolen pajamas either. We're going to get you some things your husband is going to have a hard time resisting," Sha'uri says with a giggle.

Sam blushes.

"You're a wife now, honey; red faces are for little girls." Sha'uri tells her.

-0-0-0-

Sirens blare in the street, and Sam and Sha'uri obey them, freezing. Sam pulls Charlie close to her heart. She barely knows this child, but she wasn't going to be able to live if he was taken from her. He loves him too much.

A woman is dragged out of a shop next to them. "Please, where are you taking her?" a man asks.

"Standard relocation," the Jaffa replies without emotion. Their entire race has been bred with little ability to access emotions. It's useful for a people whose profession is the committing of atrocities.

"Mommy!" a child not much older than Charlie screams, running towards the woman. His father grabs the little boy.

"Mommy loves you!" she calls to him as she's hauled away. "Take care of him!" she shouts to her husband.

Sam holds Charlie closer to her heart and tries hard not to look too distressed. They are supposed to be "grateful" for the "gift" of relocation.

An Alkesh drops down before them. Close enough that Sam feels the need to shield Charlie from the heat and the wind.

It opens, and twenty or so people run off it in terror. They have the coloring of those from the Southwestern continent. Jaffa run in from various side streets, always in pairs with a charge between them. They load up the ship, and then fly off.

The newcomers stand, looking shocked and scared. The sirens yield way for the policemen's whistle. They come and round up the newcomers, who are too shocked to run. They were going to auction. The young beautiful woman perhaps would be sold like Sam herself had not long ago. But most of them were going to be sold as slaves.

"That happened to me once," Sha'uri says with a voice of cold terror.

Sam stares at her in horror. She could have figured this out based on the fact that her friend was not of this world. But hearing it right from the person's mouth was a little different.

"Of course, they don't use Alkeshes when they are going between the worlds. They roped us together to try to walk us through the Stargate."

"Did you leave family behind?" Sam asks.

"A father and a brother," she says, looking at Sam, "See, my mother died when I was small as well."

"I'm sorry," Sam says.

Sha'uri nods without saying a word.

***So, since Amish is a religion they wouldn't exist in a Goa'uld dominated world, but it's funny anyway.**

****This story isn't cannon, deal with it.**


	4. In which serious time is spent in bed

"Sha'uri!" Daniel says as they enter his house. He pronounces her name with a different accent than anyone else. He walks over and gives his wife a huge kiss. She can tell that the other two wives, tending small children on the floor, are jealous. But Daniel doesn't appear to notice.

"Did you have a good day, Meye?" he asks, calling her something in her native tongue as he touches the mound on her stomach with no small amount of affection.

"Yes, Samantha and I went shopping," she says.

Then Daniel focuses his eyes on Samantha for the first time, "You're Jack's new wife, then?"

She nods.

"He did well, you're beautiful," Daniel acknowledges with more honesty than flattery.

"She's also brilliant. A scientist," Sha'uri defends her friend.

"What's your field?" he asks with a smile. Sam isn't used to this. Usually the fact that she had illusions of a career was treated with derision.

"Well, mostly I've been working with improving Goa'uld technology. I'd like to do some work on pure physics now that I have the time."

"I'm an archeologist myself. Egypt is a great place for that. We're lucky to live in the land of excile," he says.

Sam nods. A few generations back, there had been a practice of uprooting "troublemakers" and moving them near the gate. It was a foolish practice (if indeed gods could be foolish) and was discontinued long before she was ever born. However, the decedents of those exiled were still concentrated in Egypt, causing the people there to be both brighter and more rebellious than other places.

"So you study first contact?" she asks.

The Goa'uld make a big deal about how "primitive", "young" and "unworthy" humans had been before the Goa'uld came. They paid a lot of people a lot of money to perpetuate this story. She sort of lost respect for Daniel when she found out that he's one of them.

He laughs, "Ah… no. I do original work. I don't work on commission. If I don't make enough from my ideas, I find other ways to feed my family. It's bad science that starts with a conclusion before it gets any evidence. Actually, I work mostly with the pre-contact era. There _was_ civilization back then. To be sure, it wasn't much of one, but who knows what it would have been like if we had been left alone?"

"That's a dangerous thing to do," she says, her disappointment turning to admiration.

Daniel grins, "Jack calls me Space Money now and again. You know, after the game where people get high from nearly strangling themselves. He says I like near-death. But I don't, you know, death just seems to find me and stare me down," he says seriously. Then Daniel's face breaks into a bashful grin, "Sorry, that was a bit serious for a first meeting."

"Daniel is always serious," Farida explains with a laugh.

"Sam, you don't be a stranger," Daniel says. "If you need anything, you just come over here and let us know."

"Thank you," Sam says, taking the baby and the packages and heading back to her own house.

-0-0-0-

"What time does Daddy normally get back?" Sam asks the sleeping child as she checks on him once again. She wishes that she'd asked that question of Jack before he left that morning.

It's late. She's bored. The house doesn't feel like hers, and she doesn't feel like she can go to bed while her husband isn't in the house.

"Maybe I'll just sit down for a little bit," she says, stopping her pacing in order to sit in a chair.

-0-0-0-

The sound of something hitting the wall very close to her startles Sam awake.

"Quiet, you're going to wake her up!" Jack whispers, shockingly close to her head.

"I'm awake," Sam tells him, standing up from the chair. She sees two strong men carrying Jack between them on a stretcher. The stretcher hitting the wall of the house is the very thing that woke her up.

"You didn't have to wait up for me," Jack says.

"Eager young wife," one of them men says with a wry grin.

"Shut up, Kowalski," Jack mutters.

"Hey, she's bound to be disappointed for a bit. I can't believe you managed to get yourself injured so soon after your marriage. You won't get to enjoy your marriage bed for a while," Kowalski teases.

"What happened?" she asks, concerned, as she moves things out of the way so that they can carry the stretcher toward the bedroom.

A small woman with dark hair walks in behind the men, "He's going to be all right."

"But what happened?" she demands.

"The usual, he got shot with a staff weapon," the other man says.

"Do you or don't you understand the meaning of the word 'classified', Mitchell?" Jack bellows at him from the stretcher. The woman flinches at the large sound, but hides it well behind the stoic face which takes its place a second later.

"Come on, dude, she's your wife, it's not like you seriously believed that you were going to be able to keep all of this a secret from her, did you?" Mitchell offers.

"You can't survive a staff weapon blast," Sam says firmly, having forgotten Jack had already confessed having done that miracle himself.

"Well, thank goodness that particular piece of Goa'uld propaganda is a lie, or the resistance would be out of business in a bad weekend," the woman says.

"Janet is being modest, she's the main reason we survive staff weapon blasts," Kowalski says, with a smile for the young woman.

"I would say that the special staff blast weapons vest probably had something to do with that," Janet says.

"And who was one of the people who invented that jacket?" Jack asks with a smirk.

It comforts Sam to know that her husband hasn't lost his sense of humor. Sam follows them down the hallway. Then they roll her husband onto his bed.

"Geez Jack, you didn't let her personalize this place at all. It doesn't even look like a woman lives here," Mitchell says, looking around the bedroom.

"I keep my stuff in another room. It's nice to be able to spread my stuff out," Sam defends her husband quickly.

"Ah, but the fun part of marriage is making two lives one. Converging," Mitchell says with a smile.

"Your marriage is new, and you've only got one wife," Kowalski reminds him, "You just wait until you've got more than one wife. Then it pays to have a wife's room separate from a husband's. In a few years, he might have a second wife, and Sam will be spending some nights in her room."

"Don't talk about second wife when he's been married for less than 48 hours," Janet scolds the men.

"I'm not going to be marrying again," Jack says.

"Does it hurt?" Sam asks, lying down next to him gingerly on the bed.

"Nope," he says cheerfully.

"Did you figure out yet that your husband is a compulsive liar?" Mitchell asks.

"Listen, Sam, I will warn you that Jack is a very bad patient."

"I resemble that comment," Jack says.

"Wait, you're just going to leave him alone?" Sam says in terror.

"No, we're leaving him with his wife," Kowalski says.

"But I don't know what to do! I've never taken care of someone before," Sam protests.

"If you run into trouble, get Sha'uri to help. When Jack is hurt badly, she stays with him. But he's been worse than this and stayed alone. I'll be by to check on him in the morning," Janet comforts her.

"Thank you, thank you all for bringing him back," she says as they file out.

"The charade is up, you can go back to your bed now," Jack says.

"You heard Janet, I need to take care of you," she says not moving an inch.

"No, you heard Janet, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Besides, I promised your father that we would have separate bedrooms."

"Well, it turns out, I can make choices independent of my father, and it's not like anything is going to happen with you wounded like that. Now, are you going to tell me what happened?" Sam protests.

"I can't tell you that, Sam."

"I'm a big girl," she says.

"I know, but I really can't tell you. Most members of the resistance don't even know what went on there. I'm not going to be able to share a lot of that part of my life with you, I'm sorry."

"Did you win?" she asks.

He grins, "It isn't really that easy to talk about winning and losing in cases like this. But yeah, we accomplished the mission objective."

"Can I do anything to make it hurt less?" she asks.

"Well, in a few hours I might have you make me some painkilling tea that Janet gave me to keep in my cupboard. But right now, I'm going to sleep."

"Ok," she says.

"You are seriously going to stay?"

"Yep."

"I'm too tired to make you leave."

"Good."

-0-0-0-

A beautiful smell greets Jack's nose. What is that smell? Something delightfully fresh and feminine. He feels a hair tickling the inside of his nose. Huh, what hair is in his face?

He pulls his head back a little and opens his eyes to take a peek. Ah, blonde hairs. Blonde hairs of his brand new wife.

Her whole body is snuggled tight against him. That's dangerous. But it also hurts like hell, considering the fact that she's lodged herself right into his wound.

He pulls himself a way a few inches. She makes a whine of protest, even though she is still fast asleep, and she tries pulls him closer.

"Sam, you're going to have to let me go," he says.

She opens her eyes and look at him in surprise. "I'm pretty sure that you've got me," she says with a giggle.

"I don't think so," he says grumpily.

She lifts up a hand which is, certainly, trapped over her body, and, much to his embarrassment, is also touching her butt.

"You started it, you must have rolled over by me. I'm too sore to move," he pouts, hating to be proven wrong. Hating even more the fact that he's moving in on her after having promised everyone, most of all himself, that he was not going to do that to her.

"Jack, what side of the bed are we on?" she asks with a giggle in her voice.

"Well, you were the one that had the bright idea of sharing a bed in the first place," he says with a bit of bite.

"I'll get you that tea," she says, deciding not to tease him anymore.

-0-0-0-

"You seem to be healing up well, how do you feel?" Janet asks Jack as she enters his bedroom later that day.

"Good," Jack mutters, not even looking at Janet.

Sam looks at her Janet's though, "You go on missions?"

"Not often, she's too valuable as a medic," Jack answers for her.

"But she went on a mission with you yesterday," Sam says with a nod.

"She wasn't there," Jack says, looking at his wife in confusion.

"What happened?" Sam asks Janet, lightly touching a cut on Janet's face.

"It's nothing, it's just a touch of barb wire that caught me when I was sneaking into work. It's an occupational hazard."

"You know, we have gates," Jack teases her lightly. He obviously believes the story.

Sam is more skeptical. "You didn't notice the barbed wire until it hit you in the face?"

"Sometimes, things sneak up on you," Janet says with a chill in her voice that doesn't escape Jack's notice, even though he has no idea what it means.


	5. In which Sam and Jack are on fire

"Am!" Charlie says reaching his arms up toward her. She picks the child up, and he nuzzles into her shoulder, "Dada," he wails.

"Daddy is fine," Sam assures him.

"Dada," the boy wails again.

Sam walks to the bedroom door, and cracks it open ever so slightly to see if Jack's awake.

Not only does he look awake, but he looks bored.

"Someone is worried about his Daddy," she tells him.

"Bring him in," Jack says with a smile.

Sam pushes the door open the rest of the way, and Charlie immediately leaps out of her arms. She is startled by it, and terrified that he may have hurt himself, but it's a feat that the child has accomplished many times before.

Charlie crawls over to the bed, and pulls himself up into a standing position using the side of the bed for support. Then he tries to clamber up onto it. His tiny hands grip on the sheets of the bed. He makes more progress pulling he sheet off the bed then in pulling himself up.

Sam reaches over, and pulls him up on the edge of the bed.

"Be gentle with your Daddy," she warns her.

"Owie?" Charlie asks, moving toward his father slowly and gently.

"Yes, Daddy has another owie, but it's going to be ok," Jack says.

"'ere?" Charlie demands.

Jack puts a hand gently on his side to show his son where the wound is.

Charlie leans forward and delivers a huge smacking kiss on the spot. Sam can tell that the action causes Jack quite a bit of pain. But he hides the flinch by the time his son's head bobs back up to look at him.

"You made it all better!" Jack exclaims.

"etter!" Charlie repeats with glee.

"You're really good at this. Are you going to grow up to be a doctor?" Jack asks.

The child shakes his head with a look of disgust on his face.

"A merchant, then?" Sam suggests

Charlie shakes his head even harder.

"A scientist like Sam?" Jack asks, smiling at his new wife.

Charlie looks at her critically for a long moment, before he does a gentle shake of his head.

"What do you want to be then?" Jack asks, even though he was pretty sure his son can't answer yet.

"Dada!" Charlie exclaims.

"You want to be a professor like your Dad?" Sam says, feeling all warm inside at this father-son connection. It's a connection that she's hoping to feel - with Charlie, and someday with other children. If she can ever convince her husband to have a real marriage with her.

Charlie shakes his head again, with a wrinkle in her forehead.

"You want to do other things that Daddy does?" Jack says. He'd hoped that his son wouldn't figure out what he was doing until he was much older.

Charlie nods. "Dada."

Jacks' eyes cloud with this new knowledge. He doesn't want his son to risk his life. He doesn't even want his son to know that he risks his life. But Sam has figured out that his son means something completely different than Jack thinks he understands. "You mean you want to be a Daddy like your Dad?" Sam asks.

Charlie nods his head. Then he crawls over his father. Then he snuggles in against Jack's good side. He meant it to be gentle, and sweet, but Sam can see that it caused him a great deal of pain.

"Come on, little man, let's leave your Dad alone now," Sam says, trying to take the boy by the hand.

He pulls it away from her, and whines.

"He's fine," Jack assures her. "You want to take a nap with Daddy?" he asks.

Charlie nods his head and smiles. Jack smiles up at Sam. It's a secret smile of understanding. He knows how precious it is to be a parent, and he is glad he gets to share it with her, sort of.

-0-0-0-

Why is it so hot? Sam asks herself. She casts off the warm woollen blanket. A sound of protest next to her ear makes her jump. Who is in her bed?

Right, her husband.

And he's the source of the heat.

"Jack," she whispers.

"Sara?" he asks with a smile on his face.

Sam's heart clenches. He thinks that she is his dead wife? "Jack, you have a fever."

"Mm fine," Jack mutters.

"You're burning up, what do I do?" she asks in panic. What were they thinking, calling her an adult, old enough to be married? She knows nothing. "Jack!" she shouts.

His eyes focus on her, "Carter?" he asks.

"You're sick!" she pleads.

"Get Janet."

"I can't leave you and Charlie."

"Get Sha'uri, she can get Janet," he says.

"I can't leave you."

"You can see the house from there," he says.

"Jack, don't get sicker while I'm gone," she pleads with him before she leaves.

-0-0-0-

"Sha'uri!" Sam pleads, banging on the door desperately.

Hosna opens the door, "What is wrong?"

"I need to speak to Sha'uri, Jack is sick," she says.

Hosna leaves, and returns a few minutes later with Sha'uri, dressed in a thin cloak. "You need Janet?" she asks.

"I'll get her, you go with her," Hosna says, remembering all too well what it was like when she was suddenly, at the age of seventeen, thrust into the role of adulthood. She'd been a third wife, with two women more than willing to show her the ropes. She couldn't imagine what Sam must be going through when she was all alone.

Sha'uri and Sam rush back to Sam's house, where Sha'uri takes control right away. "Get a cold wash cloth."

"I don't know where he keeps them," Sam says.

"I'll go look, go get ice."

"Ice? It's not winter," Sam says, confused.

"I know, he has an ice box in the kitchen," Sha'uri says.

It takes Sam a lot longer to find the ice box than she would have liked. When she finally returned to the room, Jack is displaying his bad patient reputation.

"Leave me alone!" he says.

"Jack, Sha'uri is trying to help you," Sam tells him.

"No, she's trying to freeze me to death," he protests.

"Good, you found the ice," Sha'uri says.

"Ice? You've got to be kidding me," Jack says in dismay.

"We've got to get the fever down. You've got an infection again," Sha'uri tells him.

"I thought the stupid staff blast was supposed to cauterize the wounds," Jack whines.

"Well, unfortunately, the vest keeps it from getting hot enough to let it do that," Sha'uri informs him.

"So you're telling me that the vest made me worse off," he says.

"Not exactly. Without the vest you would be dead," Sha'uri says, with more honesty than she meant to use.

Sam gasps in horror.

"Geez, Sha'uri, she's not used to this crap," Jack protests, flinching as Sha'uri adds some ice to the washcloth at his brow.

"She might as well get used to the truth," Sha'uri says, a bit casually, as she drops cold water on Jack's arms. He shivers at the contact.

Sam starts to wonder if she's going to be a widow before she ever gets to be a wife.

"Carter, I'm going to be fine," Jack says, reaching out his hand to her. She takes it, somewhat surprised at his openness.

-0-0-0-

Janet rushes into the house without bothering to knock. She pulls out a bottle full of a green substance.

"No, not the mold!" Jack wines.

"Sir, you have an infection," Janet presses.

"Why exactly does that equal moldy bread?" Jack asks.

"Do whatever Janet tells you to," Sam pleads.

"It's ok," Janet says, casting a smile over at the younger woman, "He always does eventually."

Jack narrows his eyes at her, and opens his mouth in a parody of a baby bird. Janet is undaunted by the fact that he is making a joke, and takes the opportunity to shove the medicine down his throat.

"You know that stuff tastes awful," he whines.

"I know, take another bite, and I'll give you something to wash it down with," Janet says.

Jack looks at her suspiciously, but takes another bite. Then Janet opens up her hand to reveal a small dark brown lump.

"You got chocolate?" Jack says in surprise and delight.

"What is chocolate?" Sam asks.

"Give it to her," Jack insists.

"No, you need it to get the taste out of your mouth," Sam protests.

"This is something that everyone needs to experience at least once in their lives," Jack says.

Janet hands it to her with a smile, and Sam guiltily slips it into her mouth. The sweet yet bitter taste touches every taste bud in her mouth in a way that no other thing she has ever tasted has done.

"Wow, Jack, I can't believe that you would give that up for me! Especially when you were injured," Sam says in shock.

Jack laughs, "Oh, Samantha, you are pretty easy to make happy."

"I would be a whole lot happier if you could get better," she tells him.

"He's going to be fine. You just have to make sure he takes a two spoonfuls of his hated medicine each day for the next five days. You'll also have to keep the cold compress on his forehead until the fever comes down."

Sam nods.

"Now for the least fun part of this," Janet says.

"That's not the medicine?" Sam asks, concerned.

"No, I have to clean his wound. Could one of you get the alcohol?" Janet asks.

Sam looks panic-stricken. She doesn't want anyone else to know that she has no idea how to run the house. It's bad enough that Sha'uri already knows about it.

Sha'uri walks out of the room.

"No-one expects you to know where he keeps everything after a day in the house," Janet says. She's sharp enough to notice other peoples discomfort, and completely unwilling to let it stand for more than a few seconds.

Sam smiles shyly, "I'm just not very good at this… wifely thing."

"Sure you are," Jack says quickly, "And even if you weren't, you're a brilliant scientist. You don't have to be good at everything."

Sam nods, and looks down at the floor gloomily, thinking that she isn't good at any of the things that matter.

Sha'uri returns a few minutes later with a jar of beer.

"No spirits? They're more condensed," Janet says.

"I don't have any," Jack mutters.

"Hold your husband's hand, this is going to hurt," Sha'uri offers.

"I don't need someone to hold my hand, I'm a big boy," Jack says mockingly.

But Sam knows what her friend is doing, and walks over quickly to obey. The feeling of his hand in hers causes an electrical sensation to go up her arm. She wonders if her mother would have told her that it would be like this if she had lived long enough to give her the pre-wedding speech.

She looks into Jack's eyes, and for the one second between when their hands make contact, and when the alcohol hits the infected wound, she notices in them the same excitement that she is feeling in her own heart.

"Crap," Janet says once the wound has been washed.

"What?" Sam asks, moving over to the other side of the bed to get a better view of what Janet is looking at. She sees a thin red tendril moving from the wound. It fills her with dread even though she doesn't know what the meaning of it is.

"Blood poisoning," Janet says.

"Poisoning?" Sam answers.

"Hopefully the antibiotics and the cleaning will stop it. I just don't like how close it is to the heart, and it's not on a limb."

"Hey there, chip choppy, I'm not firewood, so it doesn't really matter if it's on a limb or not, now, does it?" Jack says quickly.

"Firewood?" Sam asks, confused.

"Sometimes when someone gets blood poisoning, they have to take the limb," Sha'uri explains.

"But that's not happening here," Jack says quickly, more for his own comfort than for hers.

"It's not," Janet says looking at the wound again. "Can you find me a pen, something to mark his flesh with?"

This is one of the few things that Sam has found in her brief stay in Jack's house. She leaves the room to fetch it. Janet takes it from her, and gently dips it in the ink well. Then she carefully traces the wound with it, dipping it into the ink well again and again. She leans forward to blow on the side like it is a piece of paper.

Jack giggles.

"Sorry," she says, blushing as she realizes what she's done. Sometimes the line between doctor and woman gets a little bit blurred. Even for a married woman. And Janet never really counted any of her marriages a true one.


	6. In which Jack Accidentally Steals Second

**Authors Note: Don't you hate it when the truth gets in the way of a good story? A few readers pointed out to issues with my antibiotic story. Yep, upon further research I discovered that break mold actually produces very little antibiotics. Without it being processed and condensed it's useless. And cantaloupes would work better than bread anyway. Jack would have been far better off with a natural antibiotic like cranberries, honey, or garlic. And even then the blood poisoning where it was would probably kill him. No worries, I have no intention of killing off Jack. I'd fix the mistake, but that would kill Janet Frizer's lovely backstory. So, I'm just going to tell you it's not based on facts, and continue on with my story.**

"Quit looking at it," Jack says.

"I'm not," she says without lifting her eyes from it.

"You ever heard the phrase 'a watched pot never boils'? Well, a watched streak of blood poisoning never retreats," he says.

"You could die," she says.

"C'mere," he says, patting the bed next to him.

She jumps up next to him with perhaps too much eagerness. "I'm really sorry that you didn't have a choice in who you married. You deserved to have a choice. But in marrying me, you married this. I am going to be in life threatening situations a lot. Almost constantly. I can't promise you that I am always going to come home."

She turns away, no longer delighted in the fact that he asked her to share his bed for the first time in the marriage.

"But I will promise you that I am always going to try my hardest to get home. And I have been coming home for a long time. We're good at what we do, Carter, and we don't leave any man behind."

"I'm not ready to be a single mom," she confesses.

"Daniel and his wives were going to take him if I died. I can tell him that that is still the plan," Jack says softly. He's a little surprised by where the conversation is going. Sara always refused to talk about things like that. It's probably better that Carter is willing to talk about it, but he finds that he doesn't really like to talk about it anymore than his wife did.

Sam shakes her head, "It would be bad enough if I lost you; I couldn't stand to lose Charlie, too. I just wouldn't be able to… do it by myself. So you'd better not die."

"Well, I'll try my best not to. But, Carter, you're never going to be alone. You may not officially be in the resistance. But you are by marriage, and we take care of our own. They'd be there for you if I die."

She is comforted by this. Still, Sam is wondering if maybe it's for the best that she doesn't get too attached to him. Maybe she_ should_ live as a maiden in her marriage house. It would be safer for her heart.

But she looks at him as he gives her a quirky grin, and she knows that she couldn't do it even if she wanted to. She's already too far into this. She's in love with her husband.

-0-0-0-

"It really looks good," Janet assures them as she looks at Jack's wound.

"'Am," Charlie says from the door, "'otty."

"Ok, bud," she says, "I'll be right back," she tells the adults.

Jack sees something on Janet's face as she looks at his son. "Janet, how come you've never had kids?"

"I had a son a long time ago," she mutters.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I was too."

"That why you got into medicine?" he asks softly.

"If I knew what I know now, I probably could have saved him."

Jack pauses for a long second, "That doesn't make what happened your fault, Janet."

She turns away from him for a long moment, "I just need to focus on saving those I can, Jack. Which right now means feeding you another dose of bread mold."

"How did you figure out that bread mold stopped infections anyway?"

"It was an accident. My second husband was dirt poor. My bride price was super cheap that time. Back then, I was classified as 'infertile' and 'rebellious', and no one pays for that. He was a stubborn old man. He never wanted to waste food. Things would get moldy, and he'd eat them anyway. We both got sick. Scarlet fever. And he got better. And he served me food. And I wasn't up cooking."

"So you ate the moldy bread," Jack guesses.

"And I got better."

"Your second husband isn't your current husband, is he?" Jack asks.

"No, current husband is number five. The moldy bread eater sold me when I kept disobeying him. Especially the going out after dark. I wasn't in the resistance then, but I helped my neighbors. If someone had a sick kid, I was there. He was convinced I was cheating on him."

"Ah, so you got an 'unfaithful' label added to the docket the next time," he says with soft eyes which actually show he understands more than she meant him too.

"And you can imagine the quality of bidders for husband number three."

"Did the last two get better?" Jack asks with concern.

"Well, I got better at sneaking, so 'unfaithful' and 'rebellious' got taken off."

Sam comes back into the room carrying Charlie.

"Hey, little man," Janet says sadly, bending down to his level.

"'mile," the boy scolds.

She obeys, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes. Usually, she's too busy to care about her lack of children. Usually, she only thinks about it when she's trying not to think about the pain that happens every time she has sex.

But some kids, they remind her of her son. Jack's kid, he always did that to her. It wasn't really fair, though, if her son had lived he'd be eight years old by now.

"Can I hold you, sweetie?" she asks.

Charlie nods his head. Janet picks him up, and Charlie snuggles into her in a way that melts her heart.

"This kid is adorable, you guys are planning on making a whole bunch more of these, right?" she asks.

Their faces look panicked, "Ah… not so much? Because I have something for that. It's not pleasant tasting, but it's pretty affective at keeping the stork away until you want the stork to arrive."

"I don't think we'll need that," Jack says.

"Ok, well, there is a list of foods that you should eat if there is a baby on the horizon. There's this guy who found that eating these foods made the baby's spine stronger."

"I don't think we'll need the list either," Jack says with a cough.

"I don't understand… you're not having a baby, but you're also not not having a baby?" Janet says.

"I just think it's a personal issue, I don't need to discuss it with others," Sam says.

"I'm your doctor," Janet says.

"I know, I'm just using something that I got from… a friend," Sam mutters.

"Ok, well, tell me what it is, because there are a lot of things people do that really don't work," Janet says patiently.

"I can personal guarantee that our method of birth control is 100% effective," Jack says.

Sam giggles.

"No method is 100% effective," Janet scolds.

"Ok, well, close," Jack says. Yeah, really close. He thinks. Barring immaculate freaking conception, he's 100% certain.

-0-0-0-

In the moments were Sam is somewhere between fully asleep and fully conscious, an extremely pleasant feeling radiates through her body. It's curling her toes, and paralyzing her fingers, but most of the energy is concentrated between her legs. She opens her eyes and looks for the source of this unexpected pleasure.

It's her husband's hand, callused by work, working a miracle under her shirt. Sam really hopes that her husband is awake, and that he's doing this on purpose.

If so, he was a whole lot easier to seduce than she thought he would be.

But just in case he isn't awake, she is going to be really careful not to move. She really doesn't want this feeling to go away, ever.

The first thing Jack becomes aware of is the smell he's already associated with his new wife. And then he becomes aware of what is in his hand. He stops the ministrations, and hears a moan of disappointment from the woman super close to him. It almost breaks his resolve.

He moves away from her, and realizes that he's been pressing a very alert portion of his body into her butt. He can't believe this. He practically violated her in her sleep.

"You're going to have to go back to your own bed," he warns.

"I have to watch you. What if you got sick in the middle of the night?" she asks with genuine concern.

"I think we can conclude I'm healed," he mumbles.

"Better safe than sorry," she chirps.

"I tell you what, you can keep sleeping in my bed. But if you're going to be in my bed, I'm going to be in yours," he mutters.

"You do look better," she says, leaning over to look at the red streak which has almost completely depleted.

Her face is a little too close to his crotch, and the not-quite relaxed yet member comes to full attention again, and he is relieved that she doesn't notice. He closes his eyes, and tries to think about the least sexy things in the universe: Goa'ulds in gaudy dress, black holes, death, and his mother.

"Does it hurt?" she asks, confused, looking at his face.

He clears his throat, "No, I'm, ah… good."

"Oh, you just had a weird look on your face for a second there," she says.

"I'm fine," he assures her.

"So, I think I came up with an idea for my first work for the resistance," she says.

"Yeah?"

"I think we could do a sort of… life signs detector. Life gives off heat, right? And I worked on a heat-sensing camera a few years ago. I abandoned it as useless, and it is on Earth. It detects every fire in every house. But I assume some of these planets you go to are different. And fire is a sign of life, too."

"That does sound useful, and Goa'uld technology would give of heat signatures, too, right?"

She gives him a surprised smile. She had no idea that her husband knew anything about science. "Yeah, their ships and buildings would show up as bright. If I can get it as fine-tuned as I'd like to, you might even be able to tell the difference between someone wearing Goa'uld technology from someone who isn't."

"That would be great for when we're trying to figure out if they are friendlies or hostiles," Jack says, looking excited.

"Right, that's my goal, keeping you safer. The only thing is I am going to need some supplies in order to pull this off. Supplies that you can't exactly buy at the corner store. Now, back when I was working for the Goa'uld I would just give them a list of the technological supplies I would need, and it would arrive at my door. I assume that the resistance has some way of getting the supplies as well."

"Yes, just write down whatever you want and give the list to Sha'uri, and she will get it to the people that can get it to you. It will take a few days before it arrives. You can write, correct?"

She raises her eyebrows, "Are you serious?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend, but you do realize that most woman cannot write."

"You're right, sorry," Sam says. "I'm going to get up and see how far I can make it on the list before Charlie gets up."

"I can take care of Charlie this morning."

"No, you got shot."

"I'm better, you saw yourself."

"Better as in I'm no longer worried that you are going to die, but you still have a hug burn on your side. You don't need to be lifting up a heavy kid and stretching out the skin over there."

"Carter," he protests.

She scrunches her face at him, "Maybe I shouldn't even leave you alone to go talk to Sha'uri."

"Carter, I am absolutely fine," he assures her.

She walks over to the desk and grabs a sheet of paper to start making her list. No sooner is the first word committed to paper than Charlie starts to cry. She lets out a sigh.

He worries that she is getting sick of motherhood already. He quickly stands up and moves to get him.

"No, Jack, you lay back down. I'll get him."

"I've been laying down for days, Carter. I wouldn't get him if I didn't know for sure I could. You know that I would never put my son in risk. It would kill me if I ended up dropping him or something. I've missed him over the last couple days."

"You've seen him a lot," Sam says, offended by his words. She made sure that she brought his son in to see him lots. She didn't want the kid to suffer because of his father's injury.

"I know, but seeing a kid is different from taking care of a kid. I don't want to be like his fun uncle or whatever. I want to be his dad. I want to go back to taking care of my kid."

She smiles, and gives him a nod, which is all it takes for him to scoot out of the room. She turns back to the list.

-0-0-0-

"Is Sha'uri here?" Sam asks Hosna as she enters the house.

"Yes, but she's sick," the woman says bitterly. It was Sha'uri's day to watch the children, and Hosna isn't happy taking an extra day with them.

"Is it ok if I go to see her anyway?" Sam asks.

Hosna nods her head, and Sam enters the room.

"Are you ok?" she asks as she comes into the room, "Is the baby ok?"

"Of course, this is just normal pregnancy sick," Sha'uri says.

"Well, I brought you a list of things I'd love to have, to do the work of the resistance, but it's nothing that you have to worry about today," Sam says.

"Put the list over there, I'll get to it as soon as I'm better," Sha'uri says.

"There is no rush."

"No, I'm more worried about another meeting that I am going to be missing today."

"I could do it for you," Sam offers.

Sha'uri laughs.

"I'm serious," Sam says offended.

"Honey, you're not trained."

"I know about cameras," Sam offers.

Sha'uri tilts her head at her surprised, "I only know of one other person who figured that out on their own, and that is your husband."

"See, I have good instincts, I can do this."

"I wouldn't even be considering this if the mission today was actually dangerous. But it's not. It's just a routine pick up with a Goa'uld official."

"There are Goa'uld officials in the resistance?" Sam says in shock.

"Well, not exactly. He's not really with us, but he is often in charge of making that fancy jewelry the Goa'ulds love so much. He replaces the fancy metal that he is given with cheap substitutes. It's a risky thing for him to do, but he's been doing it for over forty years, and has never gotten caught. He then gives us the expensive metals at this drop. We sell it on the black market, and use the money for resistance operations."

Sam is relieved, "I'm glad to hear it; for a while I've been feeling guilty about my own bride price. I'm glad that it didn't actually come out of Jack's pocket."

Sha'uri nods, even though his is a lie. She knows that Jack would never use the resistance's money to buy his own wife. Not even if he really and truly believed that he was never going to sleep with her. In fact, Jack had been using his family's fortune for years to free people the resistance didn't find 'valuable' enough to save. Jack always said that all of them were valuable. It broke his heart that he wasn't able to save every single one of them.

"So, tell me where I can do a pick up," Sam instructs.

Sha'uri, leans forward and whispers the address to her.


	7. Concerning Eden's Curse

As Sam sits in the seedy bar, she questions the wisdom of what she is doing. She can't believe that she left her injured husband at home to take care of a very active toddler and himself. She also can't believe that Sha'uri actually believed that she had the skills that were neccessary for her to do this. She is a stupid little girl, and she never should have come.

She was fooling herself if she thought she was a resistance worker. She would leave, but she knew there were a lot of people that were counting on her and this money. Not everyone who worked for the resistance had another job like her husband did.

"Sammy?" a familiar voice asks.

"Dad?" Sam exclaims in horror, "You have to get out of here!"

"Actually, Sam, you're the one that has to get out of here."

"Dad, please, I can't explain, but you have to leave right now," Sam says, looking around nervously. She can't even imagine what her dad would think if he saw her doing resistance work.

Jacob narrows her eyes at his daughter, suddenly realizing what is going on, "Samantha, you're not here on behalf of Sha'uri, are you?"

Sam's jaw drops, "Holy Hannah dad, are in you in the...?"

Her father cuts her off with a loud, "Shh! I can't believe they sent you out here without the proper training."

"How do you know they didn't train me?" she asks, insulted.

He laughs, "First of all, it takes longer to train a person properly than you've been married, and I think I would have noticed if my daughter was being trained before that. Secondly, there is no way you almost would have let the word slip that you almost let slip if you'd been trained."

"Ok, fine, I wasn't trained, but I'm just covering for Sha'uri, because she's not feeling well."

"Don't do it again," her father's voice warns.

She's used to taking orders from men. She's done it her whole life. But after just a few days with Jack O'Neill, a man who neither gives nor takes orders well, she's offended by the words. "You're one to talk. I can't believe that you've been doing this my whole life, and I never knew about it."

"Samantha, I don't think this is what you think it is. I'll come over to your house to talk about it tonight," he says, handing her a bag.

"And I'll do this as often as I please," she says.

He looks at her with such pain in her eyes that she feels bad about it. She's about to apologize when he says sadly, "All this time I've been searching for your mother in your face. And I could never have found it. Not until now, it just needed the proper emotion to cross your face."

Sam is confused. He's not describing the mother that appears in the few memories she has of her. Also, not in the stories people told of her. Sam can't help but wonder if she never really knew either of her parents.

-0-0-0-

"Jonathan I-wish-I-knew-your-middle-name O'Neill, please tell me you are alone."

"Sorry," Janet says, coming out of his bedroom.

Sam smiles, "Did the little boy take his medicine?" she asks.

"No!" Charlie says, trailing behind Janet.

"Not you; your father," Sam says with a smile.

"Li'le?" Charlie asks, confused.

"She was teasing; it's a joke," Jack says, walking into the room.

"Jonathan, you should have told me that my father is a member of the resistance," Sam demands.

"He's not, Sam," Jack insists.

"Really, then how come I just saw him at a drop?" Sam accuses.

"What the hell were you doing at a drop?" Jack demands in a voice only a touch below a scream.

"Sha'uri was sick…" Sam begins.

"She's sick, why didn't she send someone for me, some sicknesses are a real danger to the baby," Janet begins.

"No, she says that she was just sick because of the baby," Sam explains, causing Janet to relax.

"You are not trained. You endangered not only yourself but the entire resistance. What if you went up to the wrong guy? You could be being interrogated right now. Do you know what they mean by 'interrogation'? They torture you to death again and again. And you know what, training doesn't even help you with that. You go through six or seven deaths, and you know that that's all you have to look forward to for the rest of your life, and you are going to crack. And then I die, and Janet dies, and Ferretti dies, and Mitchell dies, and Sha'uri dies, and anyone else I have happened to mention the name of since you were here. God, Sam do you realize how selfish you are?"

"I guess I didn't think of all that," Sam stammers, trying desperately to keep the tears out of her eyes. She doesn't need him to think that she's a wuss.

"Well, you need to start thinking, babe! You're an adult now!" Jack screams.

"Jack, give her a break. She's nineteen. She's been an adult for, like, three days," Janet says.

"Would you two quit talking about me like I'm a little kid who's not even in the room? Thanks," Sam says sternly.

"Sam, the resistance isn't some game that little kids play," Jacks says.

"Well, technically, it is," Sam points out.

His look makes her _really_ wish she hadn't said it. "I mean it's not like that. You know, when you die in real life you don't just sit out until the next round. Or if you do get to come back to life, you sure as hell wish you didn't have to. Sam, there are no second chances. You have to understand how serious this is. And you can't do anything you're not trained to do."

"I get it, Jack, I'm not going to run messages anymore," she says.

"Dada," Charlie scolds.

"Yeah, I'm sorry I yelled. Daddy shouldn't have done that," Jack says.

"'Po'gize," Charlie says, pointing to Sam.

Jack smiles at his son, before turning to Sam with cooled eyes, "I'm sorry that I yelled at you."

"Yeah, I deserved it. I'll get better at this. I'm used to being good at things. I'll get there again," Sam says.

"I'll do a better job of helping you. You know, telling you the rules. I haven't explained this whole thing I do to you, and you deserve that, you need that."

"I should probably get lost now," Janet says.

"He checked out all right?" Sam asks her as she makes her way to the door.

"Yeah, I cleared him to go back to work tomorrow," Janet says with a smile. "I could postpone that recommendation if you wanted. They'd believe me if I said a few more days. You didn't get your traditional newly-married downtime."

"We're good," Jack says, trying not to let a blush steal up his face. He has enough trouble keeping his hands off his new wife as it is. If they were actually given four days with nothing to do but stare at each other, the little that was left of his resolve would disappear.

"Sam? I could drop Charlie off with Sha'uri," Janet offers coyly.

"No, we're fine," Sam says, knowing that she wouldn't be able to deal with Jack minus all distractions. The memory of the pleasant feeling his hand gave her this morning steals over her. Although, it just might crack his resolve, and if it did, she would really enjoy that.

She glances at his iron set face.

Nope, no crack in resolve there. And as good as it would get if he finally started acting like a husband to her is as crappy as it would be if he managed to control himself. Which was looking all the more likely right now.

Janet nods her head, confused by the temperature of the room. She makes a mental note to talk to the two of them about their sex life. Not that it's her favorite topic. Not that she should be giving advice on the subject to anyone. When it came to sex, she mostly closed her eyes and prayed for it to be over. But these two, these two could end up with a healthy sex life. She could maybe be part of giving them that.

The door closes behind her. Sam looks at Jack and says, "By the way, Dad's stopping by later."

"Right, Jacob," Jack says. He wonders if it's possible that Jacob is really a member of the resistance, because if he is, he's way better at the Clark Kent thing than Jack himself. "Sam," Jack murmurs, knowing that there is an area of his life that he has to put more of act on in, "We're going to lie to Janet about sex."

Sam looks like a dear in the headlights. She can't do that. She knows nothing about sex except the vague notion that the man had some part which fit into her own never-examined, never-thought-about regions. She was pretty sure she couldn't convince someone like Janet, an older woman, a married woman, that she was actually _having _sex.

"We won't give her details or anything. I don't think she wants details. We just have to grin and giggle and make it look like we're a happy newly-married couple."

Sam nods. She can probably manage that.

-0-0-0-

"Daddy," Sam says as she opens the door.

"Hey, Sammy, how are you?" he asks, pulling her into a hug.

"Great Dad, and I'm sorry about today. I never should have been there," she looks bashful.

"Right, but you didn't seem to know that then. What happened between then and now?" Jacob says.

"I think I did, sir," Jack says, entering the room.

"Well, Jack, apparently you are better at disciplining my daughter than I ever was. I gave up punishing her at, what… age six, when she dared me to ground her," Jacob replies.

"Jack didn't _discipline_ me," Sam says, hating that they are acting like she's a child, "He just explained why it was wrong, and dangerous, for everyone."

"Jacob, you're the Goa'uld official contact?" Jack asks.

Jacob nods his head.

Jack grins, "I would have sworn I knew who that was, and I did not think it was you."

"If you thought it was me, that would be pretty bad for me and the resistance and everyone, wouldn't it?"

"Right, it's just… you're really good at it. I knew you were undermining the Goa'uld. But I thought you were into purposeful 'mistakes' and losing things. I didn't actually expect you to be making drop-offs in shady bars."

"I have my moments," Jacob says.

"And you've been doing this your whole life?" Sam asks.

Jacob pauses, "You want to sit down for this story?"

Sam obeys, looking at her father with fresh eyes. "It was your mother. Kid, I was twenty and she was a reward for a good year on the job. I didn't even want a wife. I knew what it was like for a woman to be a wife, and I didn't want to be the cause of that. I knew the Goa'uld were bad. I hated them. But I wanted to live. So I did what they told me. And then your mother," he smiles at her, "She was a starter wife, she was already labeled 'rebellious' and 'unresponsive'. And she walked into my house and told me that if I tried to take her to my bed, she'd cut off my balls."

Sam's eyes bulge in shock. She doesn't have many memories of her mother, but she feels like she should have known that her mother was like that.

"I believed her, but I had no intention of doing that even before I met her. She was a resistance fighter. Back then, it wasn't what it is now. All organized and safe. What she did was crazy. You know, she mixed bombs and blew up Goa'uld ships. And you couldn't rely on her. She'd walk away in the middle of a conversation sometimes to go do mission work.

"And she hated me. God did she hate me. She hated all men. And from what I gathered about the first two husbands, she had good reason to. She hated the Goa'uld, too, but she hated humans more. She called us all 'conspirators'. She used to talk about how vast the human population of the galaxy was compared to the population of the Goa'uld. She said that if their slaves – humans and Jaffa – would revolt... you know that word?" he asks, looking at his daughter.

She shakes her head.

"It's a made-up word in the resistance; it means something like hope," Jack explains.

"No," Jacob says, staring his son-in-law in the eyes, "It's more than that. It's the source of the hope. It means fighting back, but more than that. It means winning. It means the majority taking over from the minority. It means crushing them, them not hurting people anymore. It means that they can't hurt anyone anymore, and we are free."

"That's not possible, Jacob," Jack says.

"I know," Jacob says. He pauses for a long time, "But _she_ never knew that. The longer she lived with me, the more surprised that she got that I didn't… attack her when she was sleeping or something. Then she started calling me 'slave'."

"Clearly she was smitten," Jack says sarcastically.

Jacob glares at him, "She was pointing out that while some of the slaves had more power, we were all slaves. And I started giving her stuff I stole from the Goa'uld to help the resistance. And I started 'loosing' slave shipments. And she stopped hating me."

Sam smiles at her father.

"And then she started worrying about _why_ I hadn't raped her. She kept asking if I thought she was ugly or if I was gay or if I was… non-functional down there, or something," he says, shifting awkwardly.

Sam looks at her father with horror. But Jacob's eyes are focused on Jack. "What the hell kind of a world do we live in where we are forced to marry women who get offended when we don't rape them?"

Sam looks at her father in horror. Never had she considered this. Women, they were bought and sold. The men did the buying and selling. But they didn't really have much more power than the woman did. They received woman as rewards at work. They didn't always have a choice either. And it would be worse to be forced to hurt others than it would be to be the one hurt. It would be much worse.

"And then one day I told her, 'Debbie, I love you and respect you, and because of this, I'm not going to touch you until you want to be touched'. And then she kissed me. And eleven months later, you entered the picture, Sammy."

"Daddy, did you lie to me about how Mom died?" Sam asks softly. Death in childbirth seemed tame after everything her father had just described.

"No, that's the ironic part. I was sure that if I ever lost Deb, it would be to fire or torture. I could find whoever hurt her and I could kill them. But it wasn't like that. You know? She just bled out on our own bed. And there was no one to blame. Unless I blamed your brother for existing or… myself," his eyes drop, leaving no question about who he chose to blame.

"Daddy, it wasn't your fault," Sam says.

Jack can't look Jacob in the eye. He knows all too well the look of a bloody mattress and a young wife clutching a tiny baby boy as she died.

"Samantha, you don't understand. I did this to her. I killed her. If men could just keep their hands off women, women wouldn't die so young!"

"But there would be no next generation, dad. If you 'kept your hands off' mom, Mark and I wouldn't exist. And Charlie wouldn't be here, either, Jack," she says, looking at him.

"Sam, you don't get this. You can't get this. You've never _killed _someone," Jack says.

"You two haven't either," she says firmly.

"Sammy, imagine for a minute we live in a reverse society. Pretend that you and Jack were really married, and _he_ got pregnant. And you loved him. And you wanted that baby so much. And he died because he had your baby," Jacob says.

"Ok, but you put yourself in their shoes. They wanted to be with you. It was their choice, right?" she asks that question of Jack. She can't imagine him forcing his first wife to do anything, when he's refused to do it with her. But maybe he was a different man a few years ago. Or maybe she really didn't know him at all. It's clear that she never really knew her father.

He nods his head.

"They chose you. And they wanted babies, right?"

This time she looks at her father.

Who also nods.

"And they did this even though they knew there was a like 1 in a 100 chance they wouldn't survive. And they died. But there is no way they blamed you. They would hate that you blamed yourself."

Jacob looks away for a long moment. When he looks, back he's focused only on his son-in-law, "I'm just so grateful to you, Jack, that I'm not going to have to lose Sammy that way. I couldn't do that again."

"Hey!" Sam exclaims, "If I do have kids someday, it doesn't mean I'll die! I mean, Janet kept Jack alive when he was shot with a staff weapon. That's supposed to be impossible. I bet it would be easy for her to take care of a simple childbirth."

"She _is_ good," Jack admits, "Much fewer people in the resistance die in childbirth than the general population, but the numbers are still too high."

"What right have you to deny me the joy of having a child? It's one of the most amazing things that a person can ever do. You've both done it. And I never get to? I thought you wanted me to be free! To have choices! It's a load of crap. You may think you're different than the other men, but you're not. You want me to be a china doll, breakable and beautiful, just like all the other men want from their wives," Sam gets up and storms out of the room, slamming the door to her room so hard that a picture frame crashes to the floor. The wood, devoid of the luxury of glass, is undamaged, but neither man makes a move to pick it up.

"I've spoiled her, of course," Jacob admits with a sigh, "There is still much more child in here than most her age. It comes from protecting her from marriage for so long."

"But she's not wrong," Jack says, staring at her door.

"No, she's not wrong," Jacob agrees.

**Authors Note: So a note on maternal death rates. During the wors****t**** time back when we laid women down in hospital beds****,**** and doctors delivered babies with dirty hands, but we didn't have modern medicine****,**** it was somewhere between 1 and 1.5%****.**** However, if we threw in younger brides****,**** the numbers might go up (no time in history did the perfect storm of dirty hands, bad position, and young mothers come into play. Primitive societies do the first two right, and the last one wrong). But you times that by the five or so children many of them had in a lifetime and the risk jumps up to 5-7.5% risk. Also the way I have both wives die is the most common**** way**** that doesn't involve a pre-existing condition (TB****,**** for example).**


	8. In which Sam has a blind date

Sam opens the door to see a man with glasses and very short hair.

"Mrs. O'Neill?" he asks nervously, giving her a look that she doesn't understand.

She nods her head, realizing that this is the first time anyone has ever called her that. Jack still insists on calling her "Carter," even though that stopped being her name about the time he met her.

"Walter!" Jack says, walking into the room and giving the man a hug.

"I'm not too early, am I?" the man asks with nerves in his voice. Sam isn't sure what part of the encounter is the strangest for her. The fact that this man is so nervous to be here, or that he was apparently expected, and her husband had neglected to tell her.

"No, you're fine," Jack says. "We're having company for supper," he informs his wife.

"I'll go start cooking," she says, a little frightened. She's not sure what is going on, but she's not the best cook. She hopes that she doesn't shame Jack.

"No need, Sha'uri makes me dinner each night, and she made extra for today," Walter says holding up a bag.

The smell comes out when he moves it. Sam really wants to be offended at what she's pretty sure is a slight, but the smell is so Kheb-like* that she can't quite muster the annoyance.

"I really want to talk about your work," Walter says, setting the bag down and unpacking it on the table.

"Well, of course, I'm not working on anything now," she says.

"Really? Jack mentioned something about life signs detectors," Water says.

Sam looks at Jack in surprise. "Walter is in charge of our base of operations. You don't have to hide the fact that I am a member of the resistance from him," Jack explains.

"Ah, ok, yeah, I'm working on something to that effect," she says.

"How exactly is it going to work?" Walter prompts.

"You don't want to hear all the details," Sam says, blushing.

"Walter is a gluten for details. He's big on technology. He's invented quite a few things to keep us out of dangers in the field. And a few things for comfort too. That ice box was his idea."

"Simple insulation," Water says with a blush.

"So hit them with the details, Carter," Jack says, digging into the food and leaning back on his chair.

"Why do you do that?" she asks.

The legs of the chair slam down with a clang, "Sorry," he says.

Sam rolls her eyes; she's not his mother, for crying out loud. She really doesn't care if he rocks on his chair or not, "Not that. Why do you insist on calling me 'Carter'. That's not my name anymore."

Walter looks away, feeling that he really shouldn't be part of this conversation.

"I know, it's just… you don't really feel like an O'Neill," he said quietly, hoping that she'll drop it.

Sam regrets having brought this up in front of Walter, and so turns to him, letting the technobabble cover him like an avalanche. Maybe it would be enough to block out all the things he heard before. Maybe he wouldn't even remember hearing about the shame of her sham wedding.

-0-0-0-

Sam picks up the dishes, expecting the usual symbiotic routine between her and her new husband. Instead, he says, "Why don't you take Walter out into the backyard? You can entertain him while I get this cleaned up."

Sam nods her head, and the two of them head outside. The night is crystal clear. The air is unnaturally still. It's the sort of air that foreshadows a thunderstorm. She can't quite believe the weather though. Storms almost never happen in Egypt. It causes a feeling of expectation that Sam doesn't even understand to coil in her stomach.

"How come you didn't bring your wives?" Sam asks.

Walter laughs a little under his breath, "I haven't got any."

Sam examines him out of the corner of her eye, wondering what she missed. No, the man is young and handsome, but he's certainly reached and passed the age of marriage. "Why not?"

Walter whispers, as it it's a scandalous secret, "My mom, she… well, I swore after what I saw that I'd only take a willing wife. That was the original reason I joined the resistance. Oh, to be sure, the Goa'uld have given me enough cause to hate them in the time that has passed since, but the first cause they ever gave me to hate them was the way my dad treated my mom."

"I'm sorry," Sam says, as she tries to figure out exactly what he meant by a 'willing wife'.

He looks up at the stars, "Aren't they amazing? I kind of envy Jack that he's actually been to some of them."

"Actually, very few of the stars that you can see from Earth have habitable planets orbiting them, and fewer of those actually have Stargates on them…" she begins.

"I know, but there is still something… almost poetic about it. Touching the stars," Walter murmurs.

She looks over at this man who bears his heart so easily to a women that he doesn't even now. She thinks there is something very unjust about the fact that he is unmarried. He would make a very good husband.

"Samantha, if it were up to you, how many children would you have?" he asks suddenly. He must feel that the comment is inappropriate even more acutely than she does, judging by the blush which steals up his cheeks as he asks it.

"It's really not up to me," she says.

"Right," he says, looking away. There is a pause, during which not even an insect stirs.

His hand brushes hers, and at first she thinks it's an accident. But the initial feather light contact changes to a palm pressed against hers, and then his fingers grasp hers.

There is no doubt about what is happening right now; Walter is betraying his best friend.

Her mind desperately reaches for some excuse she can use to make her way inside. She feels that she must get away from him as soon as she can. She has to tell Jack.

Maybe she shouldn't tell Jack. After all, the man is one of his best friends, and it would really hurt him to know what his friend had been doing behind his back. And they worked together, so it might damage one or both of their careers to have amnesty between them.

But she knows, with the guilt coiling in her stomach, and the strange sweaty unease in her hand that she is going to tell him.

She pulls the hand away in a flash, and wipes it on her dress. She is about to make some sort of a polite excuse to go inside, but she is saved from it by a flash of thunder, and the promised rain pouring down all around them.

He takes off his coat, and tries to throw it over her head to offer her protection from the downpour, but she takes off running, pretending that she didn't even see the action.

She runs into the kitchen dripping wet, and with a guilty look on her face.

"I'd better get going," Walter says when he enters the kitchen a few seconds after her.

"So soon? Is it because of the rain? You can borrow some of my clothes if it's just because you got wet," Jack offers.

"No, really, thank you, Jack, but I have to get going," Walter repeats, walking out of the room without another word.

When Jack is sure that his friend has left the house, he turns to his wife, and says, "What did you to do him?"

"What did _I_ do to _him?"_ Sam asks in an incredulous voice.

"Did you say something rude to him when he was out there?"

"No! He made a move! I'm just standing there, and he reaches over and grabs my hand!"

"Your hand," Jack says, somehow unmoved by this information.

"Yes!" Sam practically screams.

"I guess I should have talked to you before I invited him over," Jack says.

A horrible thought occurs to Sam, and her eyes widen with fear. "You're a wife-lender?"

Jack flinches at the insult. He would never take payment to allow another man to borrow his wife for a night. Not even a wife that he wasn't sleeping with himself. That was... even worse than forcing a woman who didn't love you to marry you against her will.

"It's nothing as bad as all of that, Sam. You just made a good point the other day, about it not being fair that I take your chance to be a mother away from you. You were right, I thought I was saving you from something, but you didn't have any choice in the matter. You deserve a choice in the matter, and I was trying to give you that."

"So you were going to what… hire Walter to father my children?" she asks in horror, remembering that he had asked her how many children she wanted to have. He had probably been calculating his stud fee, she thought glumly.

"Ne'tu no!" Jack exclaims in horror. "I was thinking of selling you to Walter. After some time, if both of you agreed to it. I'd never sell you to someone you weren't in love with, Samantha. I thought there might have been a chance of that with Walter. I think there might still be, after the initial shock of my going about this all the wrong way wears off. Walter is a good man. He's never been married. He plans on only taking one wife. He would treat you right, and allow you to work or not according to your wishes. He wants a big family. I know that you want kids, I don't know exactly how many, but that's something you could talk out amongst yourselves. Sam, I was wrong in what I did. I didn't want to see you go to one of those men. Someone who would see you as property only. It's a bad thing for men and women to meet for the first time on their wedding night. They become to one another nothing more than the source of pleasure. They never recognize each other as real people first and foremost. People need to get to know one another before they dart into the bedroom. I wanted to save you from a loveless marriage. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a real marriage."

Her eyes water at the thought of what Jack was trying to do for her. "I want a real marriage, with you, my husband," she says, touching his arm lightly.

"That's not possible," he says dismissively.

"Why not?"

"I'm in love with someone else," he says bluntly.

Sam stares at him, surprised by the words. She would have thought that the fact that he was already in love would have come up sometime in the days that she had known him. It also seemed like a particularly foolish move to be in love with one person while you entered into a sexless marriage with another person. It made her briefly wonder if her husband was all together sane.

"I've never been that opposed to polygamy, not when the wives are kind to one another. Although, I'd like to really be your wife before she entered the family. Especially if you already love her."

Jack doesn't look at her for the whole speech, and a new thought occurs to her mind. She has a whole sad romance about the unobtainable maiden written in her head before she even asks the question, "Who?"

He looks away from her, clearly hoping that she wasn't going to ask that question, "Sara."

"She's dead," Sam points out.

His eyes flash back to hers with fury in them, "I know that."

"Ok," Sam says, trying to calm him down after obviously having offended him, "I'm just pointing out that the fact that you love someone who has died shouldn't really prevent you from loving someone who is still living."

"You don't understand love, Sam; it's not something that you can just turn on or off for any reason. When it's there, it's there forever."

Sam takes a deep breath, knowing that she really doesn't have a right to speak on the subject. The only death she's suffered is her mother's, and she didn't really have any true memories of her mother. What's more, she liked her father all the more for having remained faithful to her mother in all the years since she'd died. How could she then go and advise Jack to do something different? Was it really out of her own selfish motives? Then she looks at the man before her and notices things she's not noticed before.

He wasn't as old as he looked. The wrinkles were all caused by the position his face assumed whenever it wasn't given a direct command of his brain. It wasn't a relaxed face, but a frown. The gray around the temples looked as if it was premature. And the eyes, those were more grief than anything else.

"Jack, what if it had been you that died? Would you want Sara to go on?" she asks.

He looks at her for a long second. "I would have liked her to feel like she could if she wanted to. But no, I would have wanted her to choose not to."

"Sara would want you to be happy, Jack."

He shakes his head, "I won't betray her too, Sam. She died because of me. And on that day, you have to understand that I died to."

She looks at him with surprise and alarm.

"I would have killed myself that day, but I couldn't because of Charlie. So I'm living now for Charlie. And because my work helps people. I'm not living because I enjoy it. If I were just a little bit more selfish, I would join Sara wherever she is, or isn't. I'm not exactly sure how the whole afterlife thing works."

Sam's heart is heavy. She reaches over, and grabs his hand. He looks at her, face questioning, but isn't wise enough to pull away from the danger like Sam did earlier with Walter. For her, this is a whole new experience. As her hand grips his, a thunderbolt and lightning crack simultaneously directly overhead. For a split second Sam, is sure that she's been struck by lightning. Perhaps she's even died from the process.

She looks at Jack, expecting to see some evidence of the tragedy. It's only then that she realizes that she hasn't been struck by lightning at pleasant jolt was caused completely by the union of their two bodies.

Jack feels it to, and he gives her hand a comforting squeeze.

"So you don't want me to find you a new husband?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "Are you going to start living?" she whispers. He stares at her, unanswering. She pulls him up by the hand and leads him outside.

"We're going to get struck by lightning, Sam," he tells her gruffly.

"Feel the rain, Jack, smell it!" she commands.

He stands motionless, trying to ignore the invigorating feeling the rare rain is giving his skin. Sam lets out a childish laugh, and spins around in the rain. She lifts up her head toward the sky, giggling as she catches the rain in her mouth.

"Carter, that water isn't even clean," Jack protests.

"Sam," she corrects, lowering her eyes to meet his.

"Sam," he says, cracking a tiny smile at the enjoyment she gets out of this.

She links her elbow with his, and she forces him to spin around, until a little giggle escapes his lips.

And for the first time in more than a year, living doesn't seem like a burden or a duty to Jack O'Neill. It feels like a gift.

***The Goa'uld, or at least the Jaffa heaven.**


	9. In which Jack falls for (wait, on) Sam

The smell of coffee intrudes on Jack's sleep. It's more intense then he remembered it... just yesterday. The rain changed him somehow. He'd been locking out life for a long time. He'd forgotten how good it was.

Every sensation burst upon his senses as if it were the first time he had ever felt it.

The feeling of warm sheets on skin chilled by the desert morning.

The sound of the distant city bell proclaiming the beginning of the day in its sweet, slow melody, full of harmony and just enough discord to make you long once more for the harmony when it returns.

The shock of cool water on his face as he washed up.

The slippery feel, and ashen smell of soap.

The needlework of his clothes. A reminder of his wife. Had he really denied himself a daily link to her all this time he was shutting out his senses?

The sweet, unique smell of Samantha she leans forward to give him a good morning kiss.

No, wait.

He pulls away, and doesn't miss the hurt look on her face at the action. He'd forgotten that not all sensations and emotions are welcome ones. "Sam, I feel like I might have deceived you last night. I didn't do it on purpose."

She looks away from him trying to hide her disappointment, "No, you really didn't lie to me. If I recall, all that happened was you tried to marry me off to someone, and then I dragged you against your will into a rainstorm."

"It wasn't exactly against my will. Look, there was a moment there…"

"You told me that you were still in love with your wife. I respect that. Hell, I admire that. If you were someone else, someone that I wasn't married to, like a father or a brother or a friend, I'd even like you the better for it. But I can't help but wish that you were in love with me instead of her. I know now that that's too much to hope for. I don't know, maybe I should give Walter another chance. That is, if I haven't offended him too much."

Jack feels a surge of jealousy rise up inside of him at the suggestion that she give Walter another chance. Which is, of course, ridiculous, because he was the one that suggested that the two of them get together in the first place. "Sam, there was a moment for me."

This is almost too much confession for him. She pauses, and looks at him, longing for more. Needing some form of clarification. But she knows that this, too, is a moment, and that a word from her could shatter it.

He takes a deep breath, "This isn't fair for you, because I don't actually know that I can do this. I don't know if hearts are made to fall in love more than once. Most people, they don't even think that a heart is made to fall in love once. So I don't exactly have a whole bunch of people that I can go up to and ask about it. What Sara and I had, it was intense. And if I can't have that again, I don't want anything. It's really unfair of me to ask you if you want to wait around for something which may never happen."

Sam smiles at him, and works to close the distance between them to give him a kiss.

"No, Sam, it doesn't work that way. The real things, they're slow. If you can't wait for this slow thing between us to blossom, then I can get Walter back. You'd probably be better off with him anyway. He doesn't go on missions, and he's smart, like you. I won't be offended if you choose him over me. You deserve to have a choice."

"You," she says.

He looks at her, confused by what didn't feel like a full thought.

"My choice, it's you. And you _are_ smart. You may have fooled other people with your dumb act, but I'm your wife, and you aren't going to fool me," she says.

"So, we're going to be patient, and see what happens between us?" Jack asks.

Sam nods.

"Dada!" Charlie says, pulling on the edge of his father's pants. He's not used to going this long without his father's attention. Jack picks him up in an exaggerated heave and grunt which causes his son to giggle.

Did Charlie always smell like this? This fresh baby sent? He looks into his son's eyes just as the little boy lets out a giggle.

Whatever trace of guilt he had left in his heart is gone. He knows that Sara would want him to live without her. She would demand it. Charlie deserved a father who did something besides care for him. He deserved a father who played with him out of something besides duty. He deserved a father who completely enjoyed being his father, and in order to do that, he would have to enjoy life.

He was going to try to live again. Yes, even love again.

"Daddy loves you, little man," he whispers in his son's ear.

His son's tiny arms go wide around him, "'ove!" the boy repeats.

-0-0-0-

Flowers. Such a silly wasteful thing. You had to kill them in order to enjoy them.

Sam had only been two years old when her mother died. She couldn't remember the funeral, or the way that her body was covered with the bouquet after bouquet. Flowers were useful for hiding the scent of rotting flesh when people laid their dead ones to rest.

But they weren't good enough at it that that smell hadn't been associated with the sight and smell of flowers forever in Sam's mind, even though she couldn't remember why.

But Jack seemed to view the constant replenishing of the vase on her dresser as one of the primary ways of courting. He had made no other move besides this.

Maybe this was what courting was. She wished that she knew someone who had actually been courted so she could ask if everything was going at the speed and way that it was supposed to. Maybe she was the one who was supposed to make the next move? But he had said that he wanted to take things slow.

"What's wrong, Sam?" a breath on her neck says.

She wants to turn around and see his face, but this is the closest to her that he has ever been, and she is afraid that any motion is going to break the spell.

"Nothing," she lies.

"You don't like flowers, do you?" he asks, pulling away from her a little.

"I'm sorry," she says.

He nods, "That's probably for the best. You aren't Sara, and I shouldn't romance you like I romanced her. I'll try something else."

"You don't have to get me things," she says.

-0-0-0-

"Dada!" a voice sobs from Charlie's room. Sam jumps up and runs toward his room. As she rocks the tears out, she realizes that it's much later than it normally is when the family wakes up. She quickly gets Charlie to the bathroom, and heads out to the kitchen.

Breakfast is made, and all of the dishes are washed apart from the ones that holds two shares of food. One of them is already cut into Charlie sized bites, because Jack wanted to spare her even that small amount of work.

A note is folded on the table, and Sam picks it up as she slides Charlie the seat.

"Hey, I had to go to work early. I couldn't tell you before because of the level of security clearance. Sorry, I know it's got to nerve-wracking to not know where I am or where I am going. I did a couple of chores around the house so that you could have the morning pretty much off (if you want it completely off; Sha're is free to watch Charlie, I checked). So you can get some science done, or you can paint your toenails or whatever floats your boat."

Sam holds the note to her heart for a long silent moment. It is a long way from a love note, but it's really sweat. If she wasn't already more than half in love with Jack this might have pushed her over the top.

He said that he wasn't good at this, but it's clear that he is a lot better at all of this than she is.

-0-0-0-

As Sam hangs up her husband's clothes in the closet, something shoved into the back catches her eye. She pulls it out to examine it more closely.

A hockey uniform? In Egypt? If that wasn't, crazy Sam didn't know what was.

But then an idea struck her. This would be the perfect way to let her husband know how she felt about him. She might not be capable of little notes, and thoughtful actions, but this was something that she could do.

-0-0-0-

"Close your eyes," Sam commands when Jack comes back from a mission a few days later. He's exhausted, but there is so much delight on his wife's face that he can't deny her whatever she is asking him to do.

He obeys, and she grabs onto his arm, and pulls him much faster than he is comfortable moving with his eyes closed. He discovers with surprise that he trusts her much more than he thought he did.

"Ok, open them up!" she exclaims with furnish.

She's flattened the backyard. She dug all of the hills, and even the bumps out of the back yard, and used the dirt to fill in every single dent and depression. He turns to her, confused by her wide grin. He has no idea what would possess her to do this, but she is so proud of it that he isn't willing to do anything that is going to quench her spirit.

"That's awesome… Are you planning on doing some gardening?" he asks, confused.

She giggles, and points to objects that had escaped his notice.

He bends over to look at them, and discovers that they are shoes. Shoes with wheels on them.

"You want to play hockey?" she asks with delight in her voice.

He blinks at her. "Hockey is a game that's played on ice." He hopes that he isn't going to disappoint her too much by ruining whatever kind of plan she had in store for them.

"Well, it was until today, when I invented a whole new kind of hockey!" she exclaims.

"Hockey on dirt?" he asks.

"Yep!" she exclaims.

"With skates with wheels instead of blades?" he presses.

"Yep," she says, her enthusiasm beginning to wane. She is starting to wonder if she hasn't made some kind of mistake.

He grins, "You're crazy, you know that?" he asks.

"Yep," she says, bending down fasten her own pair of skates onto her feet. He follows her example.

He stands and tries to glide over the dirt. It's different than he imagined it, less smooth. But it's works.

"So how could you be into hockey anyway? It is something which usually involves ice, like you said."

Jack takes a rather long glide, he feels like he's starting to get the hang of it, "Well, I've never actually played hockey. See, it was my father. He was originally from Ireland. He was part of the 'gift of relocation' when he was just a teenager. He was sold as a slave. But he was really good as a businessman, a salesperson. So he bought his freedom from his slave owner before too many years had passed. He worked his way up in the business world quite well. But he never forgot what they did to him. He never stopped longing for home."

Sam gets so focused on his words that she doesn't notice a rock, and takes a high speed tumble. In his rush to get to her Jack forgets that he is wearing skates instead of shoes. He glides into her side. The impact, besides causing her pain, throws him off balance enough that the falls-on top of her.

"Are you ok?" he asks the person who provided him with soft landing.

"Well, I was ok, until someone landed on top of me," she says with a giggle.

"I'm sorry," he says, climbing off and starting to laugh himself.

They both lie there laughing so long that Charlie, who is relaxing in the shade under a tree, comes over to see what is wrong with them.

Sam grabs him and begins to tickle him. Charlie falls down, laughing, between them.

All at once, the giggling stops, and the little family pulls together in a long, silent hug. Sam and Jack's eyes lock over the boy's head, and they smile at each other.

Any doubts that there isn't a "someday" at the end of the waiting disappear from two minds in unison.


	10. Concerning Love and a baby carriage

A frantic knocking causes Sam to rush to the door. Farida is standing there, holding a child in each hand. "I'm sorry to bother you, but my sister wives are gone. Could you watch my kids? My brother is sick. He's unmarried, and has no one to nurse him."

"Of course, is it serious?" Sam asks.

"I don't know. I left a note, so as soon as a sister wife returns, she will come to retrieve the kids," the woman says as she hands the babies into Sam's hands. Sam looks at the two kids in her arms. The older one is a bit bigger than Charlie. The other one is a baby, like a tiny baby. Still red-faced with newness.

Sam lays the older one down, while she examines the small baby.

The feeling of holding a tiny baby in your arms is intoxicating in a way she'd never imagined before. Her heart feels like a thousand pounds of lead. She missed this with Charlie. A year ago, when she was living her life, her… mostly son was this tiny. And she's never, ever going to get to be the mother of someone like this. That's it, her chance is gone.

"'Am?" Charlie asks, pulling on her leg. It is only then that Sam realizes that she's been sobbing for minutes. The two older children are both distressed by this.

"I'm fine, little man," she says, smiling at him.

She's trying to be grateful. She really is. She could end up married to someone who didn't have kids, and then have none herself. She could have ended up marrying Jack when Charlie was much older, and missed most of his life.

It would be easier if there was still some sort of hope. Some chance that she might still have a baby of her own.

-0-0-0-

Jack hears the wailing two houses away from his home. When he gets a little bit closer, he is faced with the undeniable fact that the crying is coming from his own house.

He opens the door to see Sam rocking the wailing baby, tears pouring down her own face at a tempo that is, if possible, a little faster and more frantic then the ones that are coming down the baby's face.

"Jack, the baby won't stop crying!" she exclaims, looking relieved as he comes in the house, but still looking worried, and sad, and miserable in every way.

"He's probably just hungry," Jack says, taking the baby out of her arms.

"Oh, well, he's just hungry. That's great, considering he about six months too young to eat anything I can provide!" she exclaims.

"Well, we're just going to have to get you some milk, aren't we, little one?" Jack says calmly.

"Jack, babies can't just drink cow's milk," she informs him, shocked that she actually knows more about babies than he does.

"Ah… You're right, they can't just drink cow's milk, but there is a special milk that they make for babies. We have some around here," he says, handing the baby back to her as he digs through a couple of cupboards searching for what he wants. He mixes the powder with some water. He puts it on a pan which he lowers carefully over the fire. Meanwhile, he puts together some complicated thing which is obviously the delivery mechanism for the milk.

"I'm sorry… I don't know anything," Sam says, now having moved past the sobs and into quiet self loathing.

"You know a lot of thing you just haven't been around babies much."

"You're so good at this."

"I wasn't when Charlie was born. I was much more clueless than you are right now. You're going to get it. Sam, is there anything that you haven't been good at in your life?"

She shakes her head slowly.

"Ok, see, you're going to be absolutely fine! Why don't you feed him?" Jack asks as he passes the warmed bottle to her.

After she takes the bottle from him, their hands overlap for a few seconds more than is strictly necessary.

"Is this stuff left over from when Charlie was little?" Sam asks, only now having realized that Charlie must have been feed by the same artificial means.

"Sort of."

"What exactly does that mean?"

"Well, it's been used since then."

"Oh, do Daniel's kids end up here often?" she asks, a little worried about the increase in child rearing her already limited talents are going to have to endure.

"No. I mean, it's happened once or twice, but that's not really the reason I keep this around."

She expects the rest of the story to come out then, but it doesn't for several long minutes. "Ok, so what's the reason?" she prompts.

"You know about the slave trade, right?" he asks.

She nods her head. What does he take her for, an idiot?

"Ok, well, did you know that some of the 'slaves' are tiny babies, and that they often die from neglect in their new owner's home?"

Sam feels like her heart is boiling within her. How could they do that?

"So, ah… sometimes, if the resistance has funds, they buy them. Then they try to reunite them with their parents. When that isn't possible, they find parents who really want a kid, and they give them the 'slave', but not as a slave. As a son or a daughter. So it works out good for everyone involved. Ah… well, sometimes the search for parents takes some time, and during that time, the kid needs somewhere to stay."

If Sam wasn't already head over heels in love with him, this would have done it. "So you're one of those places they stay?"

"Look, now that you're in the picture, we don't have to do it anymore, and it's not like they were always here. We actually only had a couple a year for a few weeks at a time. It was mostly Sara's idea. We tried so hard to have a kid, and the babies helped when it looked like that wasn't in the cards for us."

"But you kept doing it even after Charlie was born, and Sara died," she points out.

"Yeah," he mutters.

"I want to keep doing it now. I mean… maybe not for a while, until I get used to this whole parenting thing. But it's a beautiful thing, and I want to be part of a beautiful thing."

"She wants one of those," Jack says to himself. And Jack wonders if he isn't too selfish for not giving one to her.

-0-0-0-

This is a long way out of Walter's usual duties. But, most of the things he does on a day-to-day business are out of his range of duties. In the resistance, you do what you have to do. Today, that includes the care to a newborn baby girl. A newborn baby who wouldn't stop crying.

"Janet, can't you do something with her?"

The doctor glares at him.

"It's not because you're a woman, if that's what you're thinking!" he defends.

"Right," Janet says with a sarcastic roll of her eyes.

"Honestly! It's because you're a doctor."

"She's not sick, she's just little," Janet tells him.

"She cries every time that I set her down."

"So, then stop setting her down."

"I do have a job to do," he whines.

"And right now that job includes taking care of the newly-acquired Cassandra from unknown planet."

"Where is Jack?" Walter mumbles.

"He's with his wife."

"Probably making a bunch more of these things," Walter mutters, with just a touch of bitterness left over from the fact that he doesn't have a whole lot a chance with the lovely Samantha O'Neill.

Janet glares at him, "Men are useless," she concludes, taking the tiny baby from him. But she is quite busy today. She is suddenly kicking herself for not clearing Jack for duty today.

And he and his wife probably _are_ making one of these right now.

-0-0-0-

God, that sound. Charlie used to make that sound. He made it right in his mother's arms when she was dying. It woke Jack up a thousand times in the weeks that followed. It was the only thing that kept him tied to the earth. Without that sweet little mewing sound, he never would have found a reason to get out of bed.

Why exactly is a newborn mewing at a resistance base?

He follows the sound to see a baby wrapped tightly in blankets, and laying in a something that usually serves as a food basket.

Jack shakes his head at the inconsiderateness of this action, and scoops the tiny girl into his arms.

"Hey, who do you belong to?" he asks her.

"No one at present," Janet says.

"Well, what planet does she need to be returned to? Attachment is really important with ones this young. We don't want to lose any time."

"We have no idea where she is from."

"Well, you are going to have to track down the people that she was sold with, and interview all of them on the location of their home planet, and if they knew the little girl before transportation."

Janet just barely manages to stop herself from rolling her eyes at her superior officer. This is the sort of thing a green behind the ears cadet could figure out to do. "We tried that. We talked to every single one of them, and not one of them were from her home planet."

"Well, we have to figure something out. She's so tiny, and someone is certainly missing this little girl a whole awful lot!" he says a little angrily.

"I know, sir, but there is really nothing to do. The universe is large, and without some kind of a clue, we are never going to be able to figure out where she was originally from."

He stares at her, "Who's taking her temporarily?"

"I don't know. I already know that two of the people who usually do it are unavailable," she says.

"I'll… look after her. She shouldn't be here in a food basket at the infirmary," Jack mumbles.

Janet ignores the reproach in what he says to her, because she knows that it is mostly caused by the emotion of the moment.

"Ok, I'll change your mission schedule," she says.

"Crap, I did have a mission today," he says, looking despondent.

"Go take care of the baby, that's just as important," Janet assures him, "It's nothing that can't be rescheduled."

He is almost out of her door before he turns to her, looking lost, "Janet, no-one has a claim on her, do they?"

She looks at his face edged with pain, and is relieved that she can say, "No, Jack, if temporary became permanent, that would be ok.

-0-0-0-

"Sam, can you get the formula ready?" Jack asks as he enters the room holding the tiny baby.

"Sure, whose baby is she?" Sam asks.

"Ah… no-one's." At Sam's questioning look he continues, "She was sold as a slave."

"Oh, so we're going to take care of her until they can find her parents."

"They've already tried to find her parents. They couldn't."

"Jack, you can't just pick up a baby like a stray," she says.

He looks at her with such an intense look of pleading that he feels sorry for her reproach. "Sam, we can take her back."

She touches his hand lightly, "I'm not saying no, Jack. But maybe we should leave this one for a wife who can't give her husband a child. I want our kids to really be ours, at least our first one," she says with a little blush.

He can't stand the fact that he is causing her pain, "Sam, we aren't going to have any natural children."

She stares at him trying to comprehend. "Staff weapons blast?" she guesses.

"Ra!*" he exclaims, "No, nothing nearly as painful. Sam, after Sara, I just couldn't… I won't survive another loss like that. When we're ready for… that, I'll get some stuff from Janet to keep you from getting pregnant. It just isn't worth the risk. And right now, there aren't any parents on the waiting list. If we don't take her, I don't know what will happen to her. She'll probably bounce around in houses until she's old enough to be hired out as an indentured servant."

"So you guys wouldn't really saving her all that much. After all, indentured servant isn't actually a whole lot better than slave."

"Yes, but twelve is a lot better than a few days old. If she'd been sold as a slave to anyone except for the resistance, she wouldn't have made it to adulthood. Babies need to be held and loved just as much as they need to be fed and changed. People don't do that sort of thing for their slaves."

Sam looks at the little thing. "She would have died?"

He nods.

Sam puts out her hands. "What's her name?"

"Cassandra."

She feels the same about holding this tiny baby that she did when she held Charlie. "You're sure her parents aren't out there looking for her?"

"Oh, I'm sure they are. But I'm also equally sure that we're never going to be able to get the two of them together."

Sam bites her lip. "She's a beautiful baby."

"I could see the other day that you really wanted a baby. But she is really close to Charlie's age, maybe you wanted to wait a few years before…"

"Then it wouldn't be Cassie."

He smiles, "No, it wouldn't be Cassie."

She looks up at him with terror in her eyes, "I don't know what I'm doing, Jack! You can't let me look after her by myself."

"You said that you didn't know what you were doing with Charlie, and you've been just fine with him."

"I know, but he's old!"

Jack smiles.

"You know what I mean; a toddler is easy compared to a newborn."

"No parent would ever say that a toddler is easy, Sam. And you are perfectly capable of doing this. I'll help you, and Sha'uri will help you. But if you don't want to do this…" he trails off, feeling that he really needs to give her an out, but really, really, hoping that she isn't going to take it.

"Do they know that you don't intend to give her back?" Sam says playfully, but she really wants the information about how sure he was that she was going to say yes, and how likely it is that someone is going to come and take her baby away from her.

He smiles, "Janet knows that there is a chance this could go either way."

"We have to… get Charlie. What if he doesn't like her?" Sam says nervously.

"Then he'll get over it. These kids are going to decide that they love and hate each other at least a thousand different times before they are anything close to grown up. You can't take the moods of a child too seriously."

Sam carefully sits down on the floor so she won't jostle the baby. "Charlie, can you come here?" she asks.

He sets a block down, and looks around himself for the nearest thing that he could climb up on in order to walk over by Sam. Unfortunately for him, the nearest thing happens to actually be Sam, so he just crawls over.

It's only when he tries to crawl onto her lap that he realizes for the first time that something new is going on. He looks at the baby in her arms with suspicion, and says, "Ooo?"

"It's a baby," Sam offers, in an attempt to expand his vocabulary.

"It's our baby," Jack says, more to the point. A point, however, which is lost on the small boy who doesn't have a firm enough grasp of language to differentiate between the meanings of the two sentences.

"Ooo," Charlie says, clearly feeling as if his question has not been answered.

"Cassie," Sam explains.

"EEE!" Charlie shouts near her face.

The baby starts crying in terror.

"Charlie!" Sam exclaims.

Charlie leans backward, trying to get away from the scolding. He loses his balance and topples backwards. Jack stretches out his hand to catch him just before his head makes contact with the floor. He briefly wonders if this whole thing wasn't a mistake. Maybe Sam is going to start having the evil stepmother thing going on with Charlie now that she has her "own" kid. Of course, this is pretty ridiculous, because Charlie, having been with her for one week longer than the tiny baby, is more "hers."

"Oh Ra, Charlie!" she says, grabbing the kid out of Jack's hand. "Are you ok? I'm so sorry."

He sticks out his lip in a pout, clearly not willing to forgive her too quickly.

"You just have to be quiet around the baby," Jack explains.

"Eee," Charlie says, extending his lip in a much larger and more exaggerated pout.

"Are you hungry, Charlie? Because I'm pretty sure that Cassie is. So how about Sam makes food for our little girl while I make food for our little boy?"

Charlie brightens at that prospect.

***You know****,**** like we would say "****o****h God"****.**** 'Cause Ra is their God.**


	11. Concerning the Bedroom Shuffle

"EEE!" Charlie shouts.

Right, that's exactly what they need, Jack thinks to himself. Because the sound of a crying baby isn't already the most aversive sound in the universe, what it really needs is the sound of an angry toddler thrown in.

He walks into the bedroom, and sees Sam holding the baby and rubbing Charlie's back.

"Charlie, it's ok."

"Babee," he scolds, covering his ears.

"I know she's loud, but that's just what babies do," Sam says.

Jack flinches. That particular choice in words probably isn't going to make Charlie stop hating his sister.

She is his sister, right? Sam doesn't want to get rid of her, does she? Her face does not look happy. Then again, there is a whining toddler, a crying baby, and the middle of the night to consider. His face probably looks a bit less than cheerful as well.

He really thought this would make Sam happy. He wants to make her happy.

"Come on, little man," Jack says, hoisting his son out of the crib and taking the boy to Jack's bedroom.

Charlie falls asleep easy, and Jack heads into the bedroom to put his son in the crib. Sam's in there again, and she's rubbing Cassie's back as the girl makes the last fight at wakefulness.

He smiles at her as he lays the baby down. His experience allows him to lay the baby down seamlessly.

"You're good at that," she says with a smile.

"Hey, yours went down first."

"Yeah, but I had warm milk working in my favor."

He smiles at her.

She doesn't smile back.

"Jack, this isn't working," she says.

It's like one of those cartoons where someone just walking, whistling, and suddenly a piano falls on their head.

He stands there, stunned, for a long second. "Right. Ah… the baby or us?" Either way, he might not recover. Actually, Sam leaving might be better. Because if she wants to get rid of his daughter, he's going to hate her. And if she's leaving, she might at least leave the baby behind. One loss is better than two. But he's not sure that even one loss is going to be survivable for him.

"What on Ne'tu are you talking about?" she asks, stepping out into the hallway so they don't wake the baby up.

"What specifically isn't working, Samantha?" he says with a voice that sounds eerily dead.

She shares at him, "Oh Ra, Jack, no, that's not what I meant. Oh, I'm so sorry for scaring you," she says, trying to hug him.

He pushes her away, still not processing what's going on.

"Jack," she says, demanding his attention. His eyes focus on her.

"I meant having the kids in the same room. It's not working. He's going keep hating her as long as she keeps waking him up five times a night."

He looks at her, stunned, "Sam, do you want me to call Walter?"

"No, Jack, listen to me, I don't want to leave. I'm not leaving you."

"Cassandra?" he asks, eyes getting wet.

"Horas*, Jack! You think I wanted to get rid of our daughter?"

"Cassie stays?" he asks.

"Yeah, Cassie stays," she says, holding out her arms.

He sort of falls into them, and she wraps her arms around him. She lets out a giggle in relief. "Jack, it's ok. You're not losing us. No way. We're staying forever."

He nods his head, still a little bit numb, "So what were you saying, before I freaked out?"

"I think their kids need their own rooms," she repeats.

"We only have three rooms."

"Right, but I don't think I need mine," she says with a nervous smile.

He bursts out laughing, and laughs for a really long time.

"What exactly is my asking to share your bedroom do you find so hilarious?" she asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't be offended, it's not that. It's… well, I was thinking you wanted to leave me, and you actually wanted to sleep with me."

"I'd say communication is the area of our marriage that needs the most work," she says, catching his smile.

"Yeah," he smiles.

"So, yes on the room?" she asks.

He looks at her for a long silent moment. He shakes his head.

"Right, no big deal," she says, trying to make a retreat to her own room before the tears start.

"Sam, wait," he says, touching her shoulder.

"Jack, I'm going to recover, but you have got to give me some time."

"Sam, please let me explain to you why," he sounds so desperate that she turns to him.

No words come.

She takes a step away.

"It can't be because newborns are loud," he says.

"What?" she asks.

"When we sleep together. It's not going to be because newborns are loud. It's going to be because we've absolutely stopped functioning because we can think about nothing but each other, when the you can cut the sexual tension with a knife, and we're taking showers with ice, that's when we're going to start sharing a bedroom."

"That sounds both horrible and amazing."

"Yeah, it will be."

"Ok, then Cassie's bunking with me."

"No."

"Jack, we can't do this to Charlie. He needs to sleep. He matters, too."

"I know that he matters, too; he's my kid."

"Right, but I just want to do what's right. And there is plenty of room for a crib in my bedroom."

"There's even more in my bedroom," he says softly.

"No, Jack, I want to have her closer. It would save time."

"Right, just what everyone wants; a screaming baby in their ear."

"Jack, I really want a screaming baby in my ear," she says seriously.

He looks at her for a while, "Yeah, you do. We'll move the crib tomorrow."

"And about the ice and knives, I think we're close."

He smiles at her, and leans forward so that she is sure it's going to be their first kiss. But instead, the two of them just hover in silence.

"You're evil," she whispers.

"That has been mentioned," he says, spinning away from her.

"Tell me by who, and I'll kick their butts," she says.

"Oh, Samantha, you're not ready to go fight system lords on your own," he teases back.

They are about to divide at the end of the hallway.

Impulsively she leans forward and kisses his cheek. She pulls away and searches his eyes uncertainly trying to figure out if that was ok. He searches her eyes, and takes his own risk. A risk which, for him, is much bigger than the one that she took, "I love you, Sam."

Her eyes grow wide, "I love you, too."

"So, yeah, see you in a couple of hours," he grins.

"It's usually three," she agrees.

"We're crazy for loving this whole parenting thing this much, aren't we?"

"Yeah, well, you are. I don't work. I take naps."

"Naps?"

"Yep, lots of naps."

"Yeah, I am a little jealous."

-0-0-0-

"Hi, dad, I'm glad you could make it," Sam says, giving him a hug as he enters the house.

"Well, I had to see this new granddaughter of mine. Granddaughter, right?" Jacob said, clearly befuddled by this crazy message he'd been brought by a messenger. 'We acquired a baby girl.'

"Yeah, she is," Jack assures him.

"So you guys are both in this, right? Like, you both adopted this baby?" Jacob says.

"Yeah," Sam says.

"Together?" Jacob asks.

The both nod.

"Ok," Jacob says, in one instant totally accepting the crazy situation.

"I'll get the baby," Sam says.

"How are you doing?" Jacob asks, getting down on the floor next to Charlie.

Jacob has been gone for a couple of weeks, or translated into toddler, years, a significant portion of a lifetime. So Charlie scoots backward on his bum.

"Say hi to your grandpa," Jack prompts.

It's not a word that Charlie knows, so it only affects Jacob, making his heart swell. He likes that Jack thinks of his son as Sam's.

"Here she is," Sam says, handing the baby gently over to his grandfather.

"Wow," he whispers.

Her parents grin in glee; it's the sort of reaction that parents dream of.

"She looks just like Sammy did," he says without looking up. Jack glances at Sam to see how she processes this. Sam glances at Jack to see what he thinks.

And Jacob looks up just in time to see both glances.

-0-0-0-

He watches them set the table. They don't use any words, nor do they need to. They are passing kids and plates back and forth. Their hands linger at every touch. They giggle, and lock eyes with each other all the time.

Jacob is over the moon thrilled that his daughter managed to find love in a world that seems so antagonistic to it.

But he's also more than a little scared that she'll get hurt. She needs to be protected, sheltered. He tried to do that all the time she was growing up. Did it too well. She never grew the thick skin which served his wife so well.

And then Sam reaches for a pot without a pot holder. A very Sam move. A thing she's done enough that her fingers have the insensitive can't-be-hurt skin that her soul lacks**. Jack stops her just in time, pulling her hand away from the danger with one hand, and throwing a pot holder at her with the other.

And Jacob can't protect her anymore. But Jack can. And he's better at it than Jacob ever was. Because when Jack protects her he does it by making her stronger. He keeps her safe by gluing feathers on her wings for a fast get away, instead of clipping them to keep her safe.

***He's Ra's son, so he's the Jesus curse in this universe.**

********'****Cause if not electrical burns****,**** why not ones from cooking? Sam does receive an electrical burn to her hand abnormally often. She's like a female Siler. It's mostly that blasted anti-retou hand scanner. Redesign people, redesign.**


	12. In which George Breaks Some Doors

Jaffa don't knock.

It would be easier to knock, of course. Breaking down doors. Shattering through wood. Splinters in your hand. None of these are pleasant things.

But it instils fear when you say Jaffa don't knock. They just crash through the door.

"I'm sorry," a bald-headed Jaffa says.

"Sorry?" Sam says, confused. Jaffa don't knock, and they certainly don't apologize.

"I'm George. I used to know your father."

"No, you're a… Jaffa," Sam says stupidly.

"Look, if you've got anything in this house you don't want found in a Jaffa search, you'd better destroy it now."

"I don't understand."

"Sam, I asked for this assignment. Others will be here in five minutes or less. We don't have time to get you to trust me. Move!"

"Ok, well, there isn't much, just this…" Sam says, going over to a device she'd be working on for the resistance. It was an interface that bridged the gap between the technology of the Goa'uld and some older technology they claimed, although it wasn't really theirs. It was the kind of thing that she might have done for the Goa'uld even a few years ago.

But now she really didn't want the Goa'uld to have it.

"Just hang on," she says, rushing over to it and twisting a few things.

"What are you doing?"

"You tell them I warned you that it wasn't finished. Tell them that I told you that if you used it something bad will happen."

"And if they use it, what will happen?" he asks.

She looks at him with light in her eyes, "Something bad."

-0-0-0-

"Are you ok?" Jack asks, storming into the house. Sam is taking the search with way too much calm. Well, it's not like they are going to find anything. The resistance wasn't stupid enough to keep evidence in its fighter's homes. So she sits on the floor, holding Cassie, and building blocks with Charlie as five Jaffa rip her house apart.

"Those children are not yours," a huge Jaffa tells her with a tone of condemnation.

"Sure they are," she retorts. "I'm fine," she says, smiling at Jack.

"They're destroying our house," he points out.

"I know, but we've got nothing to hide," she says.

Jack sits down on the floor next to her, and gives her a huge hug.

"We're done here," George says.

"Ok," Sam says with a smile.

"You plan on putting this stuff back?" Jack asks bitterly.

The Jaffa file out. One of them is carrying her machine.

"I'm telling you that that thing doesn't work. If you try it, it's going to be a bad thing," Sam warns.

"We shall see," the Jaffa replies. Apparently skepticism is an emotion that Jaffa do feel. Perhaps it is the only emotion that Jaffa feel.

"Assholes," Jack says.

Charlie looks at him.

"You're lucky he didn't repeat that," Sam warns.

"How can you be so calm? They just destroyed the door, and our entire house!"

"It's ok, Jack," she assures him.

"They took your machine. You've been working really hard on that. You were pretty much done with it, and now the Goa'uld have it," he points out.

"It's ok, Jack, seriously," she assures him.

"How is that ok?"

She smiles.

He tilts his head at her in surprise, "What did you do?"

"Ah… I might have... Well, I told them not to turn it on. You heard me tell them not to turn it on, right?"

"What will it do?"

"Well, I'm not quite sure about that. I didn't exactly have time to test it or anything. George could only get us five minutes. But think it will shut down their computer network for a little bit. If we're lucky, it might shut down the computer network for a pretty good chunk of time. Weeks, even."

"You sabotaged it?" Jack asks in surprise.

Sam nods her head.

"I'm impressed. Who's George?"

"The bald Jaffa," she explains.

"Jaffa have names?"

"Apparently."

"And they're helpful?" he adds.

"Yeah, he said he used to know my dad."

"What did you tell him?" Jack asks, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice.

"What do you mean? I didn't tell him anything."

"Well, you know that sometimes Jaffa pretend to be your friend. They pretend they are trying to help you, and they do all of this to get information from you."

"I didn't tell George anything. I messed with the machine and told him to tell him that it wasn't going to work. That's it. I mean, he might be able to figure out that they can't turn the machine on. But I don't think it's going to be an issue anyway, because I am pretty sure that George is on my side."

"Ok, well, your judgment on everything else was spot on, so I'm going to trust you on this too," he says.

"We have to find a place to have the kids sleep tonight," Sam says.

"Why?"

"Because we have no door."

"Yeah, well, there is time to fix that, and it's not like a door keeps anyone out," he says with a little bit of laugh.

"That's not funny, Jack," she says flatly, and for the first time he realizes that she is actually bothered by this.

"I know, I'm sorry. I'll get the door fixed."

"And I'll put this place together," she says, standing up and holding the baby closer to herself. Sam starts to cry. He pulls her into a hug, and she starts babblings. "If they ever decided to take one of our kids... You know… that would be it. It would be all over. There would be absolutely nothing that we would be able to do about it. You know, that's what happened to Cassie. She was just taken away from her parents when she was born. That was it. Done. I don't want to… I can't live in a world that uncertain. They can't take our kids."

"They won't, Sam."

"I couldn't have stopped them, Jack."

"Yeah, we sure as hell could have stopped them."

"How?" she asks.

"They took Mitchall's wife six months ago," Jack says.

"I don't understand you guys were talking about it like he was married, like he was together with her."

"I know, that's because he is. She was gone for a month. We found her. We kidnapped her right back, and the two of them are happy and together. I would never let them take our kids away. We would get them back."

"We couldn't find her parents."

"Sam, I'd go to the ends of the universe for our kids."

"Jack, they could just shoot our kids, and there is nothing that anyone could do about it."

"I know," he says, realizing that arguing isn't going to get him anywhere.

"I don't like that. I want to be able to keep them safe. Always. And I hate the fact that there is nothing I can do. That whether or not they are safe has absolutely nothing to do with me."

"I know," he says, hugging her.

"Can Sha're watch the kids tonight? I don't want them here when it is a mess."

"Ok. You drop off the kids, and I'll start with the door. We'll get this place cleaned up, and I promise that everything is going to be ok."

-0-0-0-

The new door is stronger than the other one. It's not strong enough to keep out a Jaffa, of course; nothing is. They don't sell the kind of material that is strong enough to keep out a Jaffa. But this door was at least strong enough to keep out a human, and that was the best that he could do. Yet, Jack is absolutely 100% sure that someone is in his house right now.

He walks out there to stop whatever intruder they have, because Sam really doesn't need any other violation right now.

But the intruder is Sam.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asks her softly.

She jumps, and looks at him with muted terror.

"Sorry I scared you," he says.

"It's ok, I should have known it was you."

"Well, I heard a noise out here, and I didn't know it was you, so I guess we're even. What exactly are you doing up here anyway?"

She starts to cry.

"It's ok," he says holding her.

"I just… this is stupid. This stuff happens. You're in the resistance, you deal with danger all the time. Real danger. Not just some people making your house a little bit messy. Like, you get shot at, a lot."

"Yeah, but they don't do that in my house. In front of my kids. It's different, Sam. It's ok to feel violated. I feel violated as well. They invaded a safe place, and they had no right to do that."

"Thank you, Jack," she says, leaning against him and letting him support her.

"Sam, sweetie, do you want to come into my bed tonight? Platonically, just for comfort?" he asks, pulling a bit away from her so that he can see her eyes as he poses the question.

"Are you sure that you're going to be ok with that?" she asks.

"Might help me sleep, too," he whispers.

She looks at him in surprise.

"My family was threatened today, too, Sam."

He pulls her hand, and they walk slowly toward the bedroom. She locks eyes with him, nervous about this, uncertain what to do, even in preparation for doing nothing. He smiles at her, and they sit down on the bed. He puts an arm around her, and effortlessly, wordlessly guides her down onto the bed. She nestled close against his body.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she whispers.

"What for?"

"Your house got searched today because of me. If they found something... if they found out that you were part of the resistance… that would have been on me."

"It's not your fault, Sam, and it's not the first time the house has been searched. It _is_ the first time since Charlie was born… so it's different. But what happened today was not even close to your fault."

She's comforted by that.

"I'm sorry that you're married to such a dangerous man."

"Are you kidding? I'm married to someone brave enough to fight back. One of the very few people on this crazy planet who can actually really and truly do something to protect me. Do something to keep me safe."

He smiles. That was definitely not the reaction that Sara had when she was in a similar situation.

"Even more, you're doing something to work towards a world where no one will ever pound down someone else's door."

"I'm pretty sure you're the one who did something about that most recently," he says.

And just then, unknown to them in a house without any lights on, the power went out, not only on Earth, but all across the Goa'uld empire.

A sneaky little virus, working better than its creator ever hoped, buffering the naquadah reactions and balancing the energy difference in the crystals. And just like that… Goa'uld technology went dead.


	13. In which Jack Secures Protection

There is a pounding on the door in the middle of the night. Charlie starts to scream for his father and Sam alternately. Cassie also cries in terror.

"I'll get the kids, you get the door," Sam tells Jack when they meet in the hallway.

A few minutes later, she walks out with a kid on each hip. Jack is standing before George.

"What?" Sam asks worried.

"Sam, you need to come with me now. I don't want someone to drag you out of here."

Sam looks at Jack, terrified.

"What?" Sam says with her voice shaking.

"Look, I don't know what going to happen. But I do know it's about the power outage."

Sam raises her eyebrows, "It actually worked."

"Yeah, and when you get there, you aren't go to be excited about your success," George warns.

She hands the kids to Jack. He sets his son down gently on the floor. Then, still holding his daughter, he leans forward and pulls Sam into a passionate kiss. It reminds her of the strange new sensation that she felt the morning his hand was under her shirt. She didn't know that he could do that with only his lips.

"You come back safe to this family, ok?" he whispers.

Sam nods her head, and bites back tears. She can't cry today. Her only chance of survival is to play this coy. To pretend that she has no idea what kind of danger she's in.

-0-0-0-

"You're the one who did this?" Ba'al says, his eyes flashing at Sam, "But you're nothing more than a human, and a women besides."

"Well, I told them that it wasn't finished. I told them not to use it," she defends. She is working really hard to keep her breath steady. Jack said that these people didn't understand lies and trickery. She's hoping they also doing understand sabotage either.

"Ah, you did it by accident; well, that explains it then. This is exactly the kind of screw up you humans do."

"Why would anyone cause a power outage on purpose?" Sam asks in a deadpan innocent voice.

Ba'al glares at her critically.

"Well, if you did it by accident you're not going to be much help in fixing it. Take her back, and don't accept any more technology from humans. I've been telling Ra that it's bad practice for a millennium now."

"I'll take her back, but I'm not going to challenge Ra," George replies.

"Yes, yes, of course," Ba'al says dismissively.

-0-0-0-

"Hey, Sam," Janet says as Sam opens the door.

"Hi, Jack's not here right now," she says as she invites her inside with a wave of her hand.

"Right, well that's ok. I was just going to drop this off," Janet says, holding up a jar of small buds.

"What does Jack need medicine for?" Sam asks confused and concerned.

"It's not for Jack. I mean… he requested it, but it's not really for him, so it's actually best that I'm here to explain how to take them. Some people take it every day, others do it for just fourteen days around ovulation, but you're going to have to be super aware of your cycle if you go with that method. You just take a teaspoon each day, and it tastes awful, but…" it's only then that Janet notices Sam's face. "Jack didn't tell you?"

"No, what does the medicine do?" Sam asks.

"Honey, this makes it so you don't have a baby," Janet says, "I can't believe Jack would get this without talking to you."

"Well, actually, you can," Sam says, taking the bottle from her with a smile.

"Yeah, I can," Janet says.

"This is actually one of Jack's speaking without speaking things, and there is actually a sweet gesture underneath. He's trying to take care of me. We'll talk about it, and everything will be fine."

"Do you actually want me to leave the medicine?" Janet asks.

Sam nods. Then she looks at Janet, and notices a fresh red scrape at the corner of her face, hidden by her hair.

Sam pulls a wisp of hair away to look at it more closely, "What's this?"

"Nothing," Janet says.

"It's not nothing. There is a huge scratch on your face, how did you get it?"

"I got scratched by a tree branch," Janet says, kicking herself for making Jack's job sound even more dangerous to the young bride.

"That's not what that would look like," Sam says, being altogether too familiar with different kinds of wounds since she became Jack's bride.

"Right, well, it's classified."

"That's a wound from a finger nail," Sam informs her.

"Well, one of the patients was having a hallucination, and they kind of went crazy, and they ended up scraping me," Janet says.

Sam sets her mouth in a firm line, "Janet, you're married, right?"

Janet nods, but refuses to make eye contact with her friend.

"Can you tell me something about your husband?" Sam asks.

"This is not what it looks like," Janet says.

"I've seen you two times with wounds that can't really be explained any other way," Sam tells her.

"It's just classified things. If you were in the resistance, all of this would make sense."

Sam glares at her with disbelief, "Should I ask Jack about that?"

Janet look at her with fear in her eyes.

"Horus, Janet, how could you possibly be afraid of telling me this? If your husband is a jerk who beats you, that's no reason for you to be unwilling to tell me."

"Well, there isn't really much point in telling you. It's not like you could do anything about it. So why would I want you to do a whole bunch of worrying over something that you can't change?"

"I wish I could," Sam says.

"Yeah, well, property can't really complain," Janet says.

"Maybe someone could buy you. I know of someone who works for the resistance that's looking for a wife."

"Yeah? Well, he should go to an auction."

"Janet, he's a good guy. This could be a better life for you."

"Samantha, I appreciate it, but in my experience, getting sold doesn't exactly improve your situation."

"Janet, he's a good guy," Sam insists.

"How do you know that? You don't know that about anyone. You don't know that until the wedding night, when you see how rough he is. You don't know until he hits you or starves you or scratches you. Better the devil you know than the one you don't, Sam. I've had worse than this ass."

Sam looks at her, "Maybe Jack…"

Janet shakes her head, "No-one can help, ok, so just be glad that you're one of the lucky ones. You _are_ one of the lucky ones, right?"

"Oh Ra, Janet! Jack would never hurt me!"

"Ok, good," Janet smiles.

"How many times have you been married?" Sam asks.

"Five."

"And… all of them?" Sam asks softly.

Janet closes her eyes. "Ah… to varying degrees. Yeah."

"I'm so sorry."

"Can we just… not talk about it?"

"I just… Janet, what does he do?" Sam asks softly.

"Sam, what did I just say? It won't help for you to know. I'm going to get going."

"Wait, Janet, do you want to have a drink or a snack with me, or something?"

Janet just stares at her.

"Do you have female friends, Janet?"

Janet shakes her head.

"Well, I'd like to be one. A friend... and, you know, somewhere you can run if things ever get… dangerous at home."

"Just forget it," Janet says, starting to walk away.

"Ok, then just a friend," Sam says.

Janet nods her head, and sits down at the table. "Sam, you wouldn't tell anyone about this, would you?"

Sam shakes her head. Janet gives her a firm look. "I would if I thought it would help you, but I really don't think it would."

-0-0-0-

"What are these?" Sam asks, shaking the bottle of seeds in Jack's face as soon as he comes home.

Jack flinches, "Janet was supposed to give them to me."

"Ok, and you were, what, planning on slipping them into my food or something?" she asks, puzzled by his reaction.

"Of course not," he says.

"Ok, so why exactly were you getting things to prevent a baby without me?"

"I didn't know how you'd feel about it," he says bashfully.

She shakes her head at him. They'd already talked about not having a baby anytime in the near future. "You know, a really good way to figure out how I feel would be to talk to be about it."

He smiles. "You're right."

"Ok, so my question is… why do we need these right now?" she asks, shaking the bottle.

"Yeah, we don't need them now," he confesses.

"But you're thinking soon?" she asks, smirking at him.

"I wanted us to be ready for… soon."

"Jack, I know we talked about this before. And Cassie is little, really little. So I don't really want to have a kid right now. But I have to ask you. Are we ever going to have a kid together?"

He looks at her, "I can't do that. I would do anything for you Sam, but you can't ask me to do that. You can ask me to risk your life."

"That's not what it would be, Jack, it's not that dangerous to give birth. I know that it feels that way because of Sara, and because of my mom. But most women give birth, several times, and live, Jack. A pregnancy is not a death sentence."

"I know that you're right. You are completely right. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm never going to be ok with you being pregnant. With me making you pregnant. Ok, if you want more kids, we can have them like we had Cassie. I know that it's not what you want, it's not ideal, ok. And if it's not enough for you, if this won't make you happy, then we can figure something else out."

"No, Jack," she says, lightly touching his arm, "I want you no matter if we have kids more kids or not. I'm disappointed, but it's not a deal-breaker. We have kids, Jack; great kids. And I want to be married to you, for real."

"You're sure?" he asks softly.

"Yeah, this isn't exactly the kind of thing that you want to lie about."

"Right."

"So, should I like take these now?"

"Not yet."

"Ok, so... how will I know?"

"You start taking them when you feel like you're ready."

"Ok," she says as he walks out of the room. As soon as he is out of sight, she pops a few of the flower buds into her mouth. They definitely taste oily and gross. But they are also going to be worth it.


	14. Concerning Jack's Mother

Sam is baking bread. It's something she sucks at. Her father just bought bread. But she's married now, and wives make bread. So, undeterred by previous failures, she's kneading the bread into submission. She stops to wipe a tendril of hair away from her face, and leaves a streak of flower behind on her face as she does it.

Jack walks up behind her, and enjoys the sight of her hands beating the bread into submission.

"I'm going to a mission, Sam," he tells her.

"Wait a second," she says, rubbing her hands on her apron.

It occurs to him that he should get a water jug for the kitchen. Sure, there is cooking water, but it would be nice for her to have somewhere to wash her hands.

She rushes into the main room, and puts a small rectangular object into his hand. "Here."

"Sweetie, you're going to have to tell me what it is."

She giggles, "Yeah, that might be helpful."

"Just a little bit."

"It's the promised life signs detector. It's to keep you safe," she says, giving him a light peck on the cheek.

"Thanks," he says, leaning forward to give her a kiss that knocks even the totally stable Samantha Carter off balance. She leans the middle of her arm against his shoulder in order to steady herself. She looks at him with a happy drunk face. Of course, he doesn't know what her drunk face really looks like. He's never even seen her drink.

-0-0-0-

Sam opens the door to see a tall, serious-looking woman who looks oddly familiar.

The woman looks at her, totally confused, "Where is Jonny?"

"Jonny? You mean Jack?" Sam asks, befuddled.

"Yeah, my son. He's mysteriously gone somewhere that I can't be told about again, isn't he?"

Sam smiles and nods. She looks at the woman critically, and she can see now that this woman is Jack's mother. She just can't believe that he never mentioned her before. He mentioned his dad once. But he'd talked about him in the past tense, hadn't he? She had just assumed that they were either dead or out of the picture. Jack had seemed much older and more experienced than her. Although, now that she really did the math, the odds were that his parents were still alive.

"You're not his usual babysitter. Nothing happened to Sha're, did it?" the woman asks with worry.

"I'm his wife," Sam says with some trepidation. She isn't sure how this revelation is going to be greeted by this woman. And that would be because Jack had denied her any knowledge of the woman.

"He got re-married?" the woman asks.

Sam flinches, remembering that she isn't his first wife. Now she's the one who feels like she is doing some kind of disservice to Sara. She nods numbly.

"Finally," the woman says, crossing the threshold and pulling Sam into a hug.

Just then Cassie mews to inform Sam that she has woken up from her nap.

"Was that a cat? Has Jonny become a cat person?" Mrs. O'Neill asks in surprise.

Sam laughs, "No. There isn't much chance of that! It's our daughter."

"Exactly how long have you been married to my son?"

"Not that long. She's not really ours. I mean, genetically."

"Ah, you've been married before," the woman says, trying to hide her disappointment. She'd never thought her son would end up with a second hand wife. She is going to have to work hard to hide her shame.

Sam shakes her head, "I mean, Jack bought her. She was a slave."

The woman pauses. "I will never understand that son of mine."

"Well, I have to get Cassie. I'll… be right back," Sam explains, finding herself just a little grateful to take a short break from the woman. She figured when she was out of the room she would figure out exactly what was going on. But she found that the few seconds that it took to retrieve her daughter was not nearly long enough to solve the problem of her mother-in-law.

"So, how long have been married?" the woman asks as she trails after Sam as she goes to the kitchen.

"Almost a month. Did you say hi to your grandson?" she asks, tilting her head to Charlie on the floor.

"He's little. It's not like he understands anything," the woman says.

"Actually, language development primarily occurs during these years," Sam says. "Charlie, say hi to your grandma."

Charlie smiles and starts to crawl toward her. But his grandmother waves him off dismissively, "He doesn't know me."

"Ok, but he could know you, if you talk to him."

The woman looks at her, "He's too young to form memories."

"If that were true, I'd have no memories of my mother."

"Your mother died?" the woman asks with a sudden trace of compassion that surprises Sam. "Were your father's other wives good to you?"

"He didn't have any," Sam admits.

"But a child can't grow up without a mother," the woman states with the same certainty that Sam stated that no-one could survive a staff blast.

"My father took care of me," she says.

"Your father?" Mrs. O'Neill says completely puzzled.

"Jack has been taking care of Charlie," Sam defends.

"No, no, he's been borrowing Daniel's wife… Sha're. That's how he's been getting by."

Sam's face turns read at the besmirching of her friend _and_ husband's name. "He didn't borrow her!"

"Well, he borrowed her for part of the wifely duties, even if he didn't borrow her for all of them."

"Sha're might have helped Jack with his son, but he was the one raising Charlie, really," she tells her.

Her mother in law looks at her, scandalized.

"Are you hungry?" Sam asks her.

The woman nods.

"Ok… I'm not good at predicting what people are going to want. So just tell me what to make."

"Do you have juice?"

Sam pours her a cup.

"So, you like kids, then?" her mother in law asks, as Sam holds the bottle for the baby.

"Yeah," Sam says with a wide grin.

"Myself, I never got to into that. I was a lot luckier than you. I had four sister wives. Two of them were really into kids. So they did most of the kid stuff. I worked."

"Oh, I work sometimes too."

"Yeah?"

Sam immediately realizes that she's put her foot in her mouth. She can't talk about her work to much without revealing the resistance, and she really can't do that. "Ah… I just tinker with some machines."

"Well, if you're good at tinkering, the Goa'uld pay a pretty high price for that kind of thing."

"They certainly do."

"'Course it would be hard to do this with the blackout."

"Yeah, it's hard for the Goa'uld to do anything," Sam says, hiding a smile.

"Am!" Charlie demands from the floor. "Potty!"

"Ok, little man," Sam says to him. "Here, hold your granddaughter for a second," she says to her mother-in-law, before picking the small boy off the ground.

"No, wait!" the woman protests.

"You'll be fine," Sam assures her.

-0-0-0-

Jack can't believe the sight that reaches his eyes when he enters the house. His mom pleading with his daughter, "Please baby, if you'll just be quiet, your mother will return."

"Mom?" he questions, shocked.

"Thank Ra you've come, Jonathan," she says, rushing over and putting the baby in her son's arms.

"You looked pretty domestic there for a little bit," he says with a giggle in his voice.

"She hates me! She didn't stop crying from the moment that new wife of yours put her in my arms."

"That's not because she hates you, Mom, that's just what babies do."

"You've really been raising… that son of yours ever since his mother died?" she asks with a tone of clear mystification.

"His name is Charlie, and yeah, mom, I have," Jack says, trying not to be more offended than he had a right to be.

She shakes her head. "See, I thought the good thing about polygamy was that everyone got to do what they wanted with their lives. The women could work or raise the kids as they saw fit. When there is only one wife she doesn't have a choice but to raise the kids."

"But what if the _husband_ wants to take part in raising his own children? Shouldn't he have that right too?"

"I suppose that is true, but it just never occurred to me that someone, least of all a _man _might want to help take care of their babies."

Jack looks down at the baby in her arms, and gives her a huge grin. She responds to it with a tiny giggle. It's early for her to be reacting like that. Early enough that he's not entirely sure that it really happened. Jack grins even wider at that realization.

"You made her stop crying," his mother says in awe.

"Babies sense fear, Mom. If you're terrified to take care of them, they are going to know that. They're going to respond to it."

Sam comes out of the bathroom, holding Charlie's tiny hand in hers.

"Dada!" he says, running toward his father. He points to his grandmother. "Ooo?"

"That's your grandma," Jack explains.

Charlie's brow furrows.

"She's my mother," Jack goes on.

Charlie still looks confused.

"A mother is someone who takes care of you," Jack continues to explain.

"Ma!" Charlie exclaims, putting his arms around his father.

This causes laughter all around the room, which is of course greatly offensive to the little boy.

"You have to be a girl in order to be a mother," Jack corrects his son.

Charlie thinks about this for a long moment, before turning to Sam with a question on his face (the laughter killed his confidence). "Ma?"

Jack is just about to correct his assumption when he sees the tears in the corner of Sam's eyes. He meets her eyes with her as he says, "Yeah, Charlie, that is your mother."

Charlie smiles at her and falls into her arms. Then he pulls away with his adorable brow furrow, "Am? Ma?"

"You can call me either one," Sam informs him.

Charlie nods, and seems to be thinking about it even more carefully, "Ma," he decides with a firm nod of his head.

"Good choice, son," Jack says, picking up the boy and tickling his sides.

-0-0-0-

Jack's mom was in town on business, so she would be staying with them for a few days. This meant that Sam and Jack got to share a bed.

"So your mom, she's warm," Sam says with a laugh as she lays down next to him.

"Yeah, that's not exactly the word that I would chose to describe her."

Sam grows serious, "Jack it must have been hard growing up with her as your mother."

"It's not like she ever did anything to take care of me."

"I know; that was kind of my point. It would have been nice to have a mother that was really involved in your life when you were growing up."

"I had a lot of adults that were really involved in my life. I had two mother-aunts that were great with me."

"It's not the same."

"No, but it was pretty close to having a mom and a dad. You know, Sam, we're not going to be Cassie's real parents, either. But she is going to have two adults that love her and live with her, and take care with her. That's all that's going to matter. I had four parents that I lived with. Two of them really loved me and took care of me."

"I'm sorry your parents weren't there for you, Jack," she whispers.

"A lot of people are really hard on polygamy. But what I saw of it growing up, Sam, it's good. I mean, things wouldn't have turned out well if I'd only had my parents. I would have been ignored. That's the great thing about multiple parents. The failings of one are taken care of by another."

Sam's heart clenches. A few weeks ago, she thought that she was would be willing to share him, but she is certain now that she could never do that. That she's not strong enough to do that.

"So you've considered polygamy?" she asks nervously.

He laughs at her nerves, "Oh, honey, I don't have any plans of that for us. It only works when the husband won't play favorites, and the wives won't get jealous. I don't think neither of those things would ever be true in our case."

"That's some pretty high standards. I don't think that most polygamist families would meet that criteria," she says, thinking on that Jacksons.

"I know. Most people have a favorite wife, and they're done for."

"Daniel," she says.

"Yeah, he would have been a lot better off if his favorite wife had stayed as his only wife."

"Why did he marry someone else?" Sam asks, nervous that this to could happen to her.

"They were four years into a marriage and didn't have any children. So he married Farida. He regretted it almost instantly; if you want to talk about a jealous woman she would be the perfect image of one. So he married Hosna so part of Farida's fury could be unleashed on her instead of Sha're."

"How did that work out for him?"

"More chaos, and a lot more kids. You know, it's funny," Jack laughs a little bit bitterly, "He wanted kids so bad. But as soon as he had them, he went about ignoring the kids the second that they were born. Me, I am terrified of having more kids. But I sure as hell love the ones that I have."

She runs a finger through his hair, "I have a little trouble picturing Daniel as a bad father."

"Oh, he's not really a bad father. He isn't really a father at all. And the only reason you can't picture him as a bad father is because you think he's handsome. Woman often make the flaw of equating looks with nobleness. Men have a worse flaw, but many only care about the looks."

"I don't think Daniel is handsome," Sam protests.

He raises an eyebrow at her silently.

"Ok, I do."

He smiles at her, but it's a sad smile. He has just been reminded that she is much younger than he is.

"But I wouldn't want him for a husband."

"Because he's taken three times over?"

"No," she says with a pause. "I guess now the fact that he isn't a good father is part of the reason. But even before that, I just felt..." she shrugs, "I like the way he looks. And the way he talks. And I really think he's a good man. But he's just not you."

Jack smiles and puts an arm around her, pulling her closer to himself. "I love you, Carter."

"Not Carter," she says, catching his eyes with her own brilliant blue orbs.

"Ok, I love you, Sam."

"And I love you, O'Neill."


	15. Concerning Laundry at Naptime

Sam and Jack are enjoying their daily breakfast. Suddenly, Jack is staring over her shoulders.

"What?" Sam asks, glancing nervously over her shoulder.

"Sam, that bottle of buds that Janet gave us is half gone."

She blushes.

He smiles.

"I guess it was presumptuous," she whispers.

He shakes his head, "Sorry you've had to be so patient."

Her eyes meet his, "Past tense?" she asks hopefully.

He leans across the table, and starts kissing her. It's teasing, like all of the other kisses, but it's different too, there is a fierceness to it. His hand snakes around her neck, pulling her closer. His tongue parts her lips, and swaps between stroking and sucking at her tongue.

She moans at the action, and that causes him to increase his attack.

He stands up slowly, and she follows without any conscious effort, desperate to keep contact with him. In the same way, he edges her over to the kitchen wall. He pushes her against the wall, and pushes himself against her. Things are just starting to get quite exciting and fun when… Cassie starts to cry.

Sam makes a groan of disappointment.

"We'll continue this at nap time, Samantha. The kids have got to sleep sometime."

-0-0-0-

A few hours later, as promised, Cassie falls asleep. Jack is singing Charlie to sleep with a lullaby that the two of them learned from Sha're. Sam decides to take this chance to get ready for their first time. She lays her daughter down in the crib in the room she shares with her daughter, before changing into the sexiest piece of lingerie that she bought on that first shopping trip with Sha're.

It's finally happening.

She's excited… right? Why isn't she excited? She's wanted this for a long time, so why does the thought of having sex with her husband fill her with dread?

Normal brides are lucky. They don't have much time to anticipate what is going to happen to them. They don't have any time to develop fear.

-0-0-0-

She's standing in his bedroom, looking amazing. She's wearing a lacy black thing that makes her long legs look even longer, her hair look even ligher, her eyes look even more brilliant. It makes her look overall just even more amazing that she already did.

But those eyes are terrified. She's standing there, almost shaking. If it were nighttime, he might assume she was shaking from the cold; after all, she's not exactly wearing thermal underwear. But in the daytime, in the desert, that can't possibly be the cause.

"Samantha?" he asks, reaching out to touch her arm. The arm turns to goosebumps beneath his feather-light touch. But they aren't the good kind of goose bumps.

She smiles at him, and leans forward for a kiss.

He pulls away, shaking his head. "What's wrong, Sam?"

"Just… quickly, before I lose my nerve," she whispers, and he's horrified to discover tears glistening in her eyes.

"Quickly? You've got to be kidding me. Sam, we don't have to do this. This isn't something to endure."

"Jack, I've never exactly gotten the pre-marriage speech. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, and I am terrified that I'm going to suck at it," she says, letting the tears spill over.

He touches her face softly, and that bring a smile to his face. "You're overthinking it. You're not going to suck at it. We're just going to do what feels good. What feels right. If one of us doesn't like it, we stop. You've liked the kissing, right?"

She nods her head.

"Ok, this is just that, but more," he says, leaning forward and taking possesion of her mouth. He's tentative at first, his confidence shaken by her fear. But she responds to the kiss. He lowers her onto bed softly, leaning over her. Then he pulls back for a second to examine her face.

There is no fear now. "I love you, wife," he whispers to her.

-0-0-0-

Jack holds Samantha tight to him in the glorious afterglow. Suddenly her hand slaps him hard across his bare chest.

"What in Ne'tu?" he asks, grabbing onto her wrist in an involuntary self-defense mode. He lets it go immediately. Her move may have smarted a little, but he knows that Sam would really never hurt him.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," Sam says.

"What?" he asks, repositioning himself so he can see her face better?

"I told you I didn't know what to expect," she says.

He runs a hand across her back. Making her goose bump in a good way this time. "What part was a surprise?"

She leans forward and whispers in his ear. Even after all they shared, she is a little bit nervous about sharing this with him. "I didn't know it felt good for the woman."

He looks at her with concern, "You didn't think you were going to enjoy it?"

She shakes her head, "When women talk about it… it's like a chore. Like the laundry. That was no load of laundry."

He giggles, and she feels the motion reverberating against his chest. Then he gets serious. "Why did you want to do it so bad, if you didn't think you were going to enjoy it?"

"I thought that you would enjoy it."

"That's not enough reason," he says.

"You're my husband, Jack. I would do anything for you."

He leans forward and kisses her, "Ditto. So if our bedroom ever becomes the laundry room, you'll let me know so we can fix it, right?"

"I can't imagine that happening."

"But if it does?"

"Yeah, I'll give you a heads-up." She snuggles against him again. "I do have one more question."

"Humm?" he asks.

"How often do people do the laundry?"

"Whenever your clothes get dirty," he responds.

This time, the smack lands on his back. "Hey! Abuse is not love."

"How often are we going to… you know?" she whispers.

"As often as we want to."

Cassie starts to fuss in the next room.

"Correction; as often as the kids allow us to."

Sam giggles, "Good to hear. You're taking care of the baby, right?"

He groans.

"Loincloths are easier to put on than lingerie."

He giggles once more before getting up.

-0-0-0-

Sam grins as she opens the door to her new friend.

"Jack said you wanted me to come and discus some new invention you have up your sleeve?" Janet says.

Sam nods, though in truth this is only about half of her reason for inviting Janet over today. She really feels like the woman needs some friends, and is more than happy to fill the role for her.

"Right. I was thinking it would be really useful for you to identify which people have Goa'uld's in them, and which people don't. I don't know which myths about the resistance are true, and which ones are not. To be honest, up until a couple of months ago, I didn't know for sure the resistance even existed."

"We've had Goa'uld spies get into the resistance more than once. Not our unit, of course. If they had, we, wouldn't still be here," Janet says with a laugh.

"I was thinking about how Goa'uld are the only ones that can operate some of their technology. I figure there has got to be something different about their physiology. Then maybe I can figure out a way to detect it."

Janet smiles at her, "You're right, there is a metal in their blood. People with the metal can tell if other people have it or not. That's why we can't have our people pretend to be Goa'uld or Jaffa. They see right through us."

Sam grins, surprised that her hunch is working out so well. "Could you get me some of this metal?"

"Sure. I mean, the stuff is rare, but we can spare a little bit of it," Janet says.

"Are you ok? You look kind of sick," Sam says, examining Janet's face.

"I'm fine," Janet says, in the most unconvincing way.

"Have a chair, and I'll grab you something to drink," Sam says, walking out of the room.

Janet really thought she could hold it together, she didn't want anyone to know about this. But she ends up making a run for the bathroom, not long after Sam leaves the room.

"I'm sorry," Janet mutters when Sam comes to check on her a few seconds later.

"Hey, you're sick, that isn't anything to apologize for," Sam says.

"It's nothing," Janet says a bit too quickly.

"Maybe you should go see a doctor," Sam says, "I know that you're the only doctor in this unit, but I'm sure there is someone else you can go to. It's probably not related to the resistance, anyway, so you should be able to go to a regular doctor."

"I don't need a doctor," Janet says firmly.

"Ah… ok, so you know what's wrong?" Sam asks, concerned.

"I'm just pregnant," Janet says, not looking in her eye. She might not want anyone to make a big deal about this, but she also isn't going to let someone worry about her when she is perfectly fine.

"You are?" Sam asks excitedly. She knows that Janet wants a baby, and she can't figure out why her friend isn't over the moon right now.

"It happens sometimes. It never lasts long," Janet says quickly.

Sam feels like the floor has just fallen away beneath her feet. She can't imagine… losing not one baby, but baby after baby. How could you deal with grief like that?

She also knows that Janet is not nearly as so cavalier about the loss as she pretends to be. She'd probably like to be that callous, but she isn't.

"I'm sorry," Sam says, finding that these words are completely inadequate to express her true feelings.

"That's life," Janet says coolly.

"Can I ask? I mean, I know it's rude, but why?"

Janet sighs. There is a part of her that really doesn't want to tell Sam that. But a bigger part of her does. A bigger part of her has wanted to vent on a girlfriend for a really long time. Sam already knows that her husband is an ass, so Janet isn't taking any risks there.

"So, I was only fourteen when I got married," Janet admits.

"It's illegal to marry a girl younger than sixteen," Sam informs her.

"There are a lot of people who break that rule. My parents were desperate, because they were poor, and no-one really looked into their lie that much. My birth was officially recorded, but no one checked it when I was put up for sale."

"That's young," Sam says softly. She knows that she was a very different person five years ago. She can't imagine herself being ready for marriage then. She's barely ready for it now at nineteen. Janet is so confident and able that Sam can't imagine her as the scared teenager that she must have been at her wedding.

"Yeah, it was. And sex terrified me. So I got all… tight. And it left scars. So it's hard for me to get pregnant. But every couple of years, it happens. But I haven't carried a baby to full term since the first one. And that one was conceived before there was any scarring."

"I'm so sorry," Sam says. She's confused by the 'first one' and she debates for a long time before she decides that she has to ask. "What happened to the one who reached full term?"

Janet frowns, "Well, he actually didn't quite reach full term. He was early. I wasn't on the special diet I talked to you about starting if you're planning on having kids. And then I got an infection. Something that I know how to take care of now. Each of these things by themselves increases risk of miscarriage. Both of them together increases the risk even more. He was tiny when he was born, and he wasn't even breathing. Now… I know how to make a baby breath when they are born not breathing. And I know how to keep a premature baby warm so they live. I've saved babies younger than my son. They got to grow up, and he didn't. And I might have carried longer, had I known how to take care of myself," Janet has forgot that anyone else was even in the room. She's saying words that she's need to say aloud for a long time. "I just held his still body. So tiny. So perfectly formed. And he never got to live."

"Janet, I can't imagine what you went through… I'm… I can't imagine how sorry I am."

Janet feels like she needs to explain to Sam more about what she was went through. Sam was lucky enough to escape the horrors herself, but she should know something about what the rest of the womankind goes through.

"That first night, when I was married. I fought. I cried. I bled. I thought I was going to die. And then I wished I _would_ die."

Sam stares at her in horror. How did she not know about this?

"And it's sucked ever since. Don't get me wrong, it's not like the first time. And if I could ever just relax, maybe it wouldn't hurt, but… It's hard to relax, because I know it's going to hurt."

"Janet, that is not your fault."

"Well, it's not like husbands ask permission to have sex. Women just have to deal with it."

"The good ones ask permission," Sam says softly.

"Yeah, well, then the good ones are more a myth than the resistance," Janet says bitterly. She doesn't want to be jealous of someone who is luckier in marriage than herself, but she can't help it.

"Janet, maybe I can help you find a good one."

"Sam, that's not going to work. I have a baby now. My husband would never sell me while I'm pregnant. And after the baby is born it's his, forever. If I get sold again…"

Sam nods her head, but it doesn't escape her notice that Janet seems to be planning for the baby that she didn't think was going to exist a while ago.


	16. In which Jack and Sam acquire a baby

**3 Months Later**

It is Sha'uri's day to watch the children for all of her sister wives. Sam and Sha're are relaxing in the O'Neill's backyard as the children play. There is a beautiful symbiosis in this action. Sam, even though her parenting skills have grown a lot lately, still feels like she needs guidance on how to be a parent. On the other hand, Sha'uri is pregnant far past the point of being uncomfortable, and pretty close to not being able to move. They need each other right now.

"Sha'uri, how do you know you're pregnant?" Sam asks suddenly.

"I assume we're actually talking about you instead of me. Because if you can't tell that I'm pregnant, you have some issues."

Sam laughs, "Yeah, pretty much."

"Did your monthly come late?"

Sam nods.

"Have you been feeling sick?"

"For a while, now I am just ravenous all the time."

"Sounds like you're having a baby," Sha'uri says with a grin, rubbing her own stomach.

"I thought so… it's only… Janet gave me something that would keep this from happening," Sam admits.

"Yes, well sometimes it happens anyway," Sha're pauses to scold one of the children for eating sand. Then she looks at her friend, "Was it that you didn't want that to happen, or you didn't want this to happen quite yet? You do have some pretty young kids."

"That's true, but I'm very ok with this."

"Well, it's always best to be ok with whatever happens to you. But being ok with it is quite different from actually wanting it."

"You're right, the kids are all going to be really close in age. If I were planning this, I might not have planned it quite yet. But Jack really doesn't want this to happen ever."

Sha'uri looks at her friend, concerned. She can't actually imagine a husband who doesn't want as many kids as his wives can have. Actually, that is one of the main reasons that men choose to have more wives.

"He's worried," Sam explains, "You know, about how Sara died."

"Just because it happened to her, doesn't mean that it's going to happen to you."

"I know that, but he doesn't."

"Sam, when I got pregnant, Janet gave me a list of foods to eat and not eat. Things to do and not do. People who follow this list have a greater chance of having a healthy baby, and being fine themselves. It's not a guarantee. Still, you should go talk to her."

"Ok, but don't tell Jack."

Sha're raises her eyebrows.

"It's… nothing untoward about this. It's just that he's going to worry, and if I play this right, he will have a few less months of worry than he would otherwise."

"Sam, I think you need to give Jack a chance," Sha'uri says, looking at her, "He's a great guy. If you just told him everything, I'm sure he'd be over the moon excited about it. And being pregnant isn't exactly something I would call easy. You're going to need support, and Jack can give you that."

Sam smiles, "I'll talk to Janet, and do everything I can to make sure this kid is healthy. And I'll tell Jack when it's best for him to know. Trust me, ok?"

-0-0-0-

Sam isn't quite sure how Janet is going to take this news, and she figures it probably depends on the answer to this question, "Janet, how are things going?" she asks, looking at her stomach meaningfully.

"Still good, this is a long one," Janet says. She knows that's a good sign. It could mean that she's really going to have a baby. But it could also mean that this one is just going to hurt a lot more when she finally loses it.

"Listen… I'm pregnant."

Janet grins. "Good for you, Sam!"

"You're going to help me, right?"

"Of course. There are a lot of things that you can do to make sure that it's a healthy pregnancy."

"Just don't tell Jack."

Janet stares at her for a second. "Samantha, cheating on your husband is dangerous. I know that I've been accused of cheating on a husband. But I never did it. They could have you killed, you know. Jack might not even be able to stop it."

"I never… I didn't cheat on Jack," Sam says incredulously.

"Then why wouldn't you want to tell him that he's a papa?"

"I don't want him to worry, that's all. So just tell me what to do about this baby."

"Ok," Janet says with a smile.

-0-0-0-

**2 Months Later**

Sam carefully takes one more of the herbs that Janet gave her, and slips it into a drawer. Every couple of weeks, she returns them to Janet. Then Janet brings them back. She needs Jack to think she's still taking them, but she can't actually take them.

Suddenly she finds herself going dizzy. She slams the drawer shut, and starts to fall.

"Ma!" Charlie exclaims, with terror in his voice. Jack runs in from the other room, and catches her just as she starts to go down.

"Sam!" he exclaims, picking her up and carrying her over to the couch. She doesn't completely go under, but her consciousness slips in and out a little bit.

She focuses on his face desperate to say with him.

A few seconds later the world comes back into focus. "Jack, I'm ok now."

"So, I can go get Janet now? You'll be ok? I'll take the kids with me."

"You don't have to do that."

"Sam, you almost passed out, we have to figure out what's wrong."

"Janet knows what's wrong."

His heart sinks, and for a long second he can't breathe. He sits down next to her, "What is it?"

She sits up, suddenly feeling like he's the worse off of the two of them. But as she rises up, a new wave of dizziness comes over her, and she has to lay back down. "No, Jack. Ra, I didn't want to make you worry about me. I'm pregnant."

He stares at her, open-mouthed.

"So, the baby is healthy. We're fine. This is just normal stuff. I just need to sit down, maybe have a snack," she assures him.

He's still staring at her.

"Jack?" she asks with concern, as she rubs her arm carefully.

He keep staring into space.

"Jack, look at me," she pleads, getting really worried.

"How long?"

"Almost three months. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I was actually trying to avoid you worrying. But we can see how well that worked out for me."

"You need food. What food?" he asks, still sounding stunted. Then he stands up and walks toward the kitchen.

"Jack, just wait, the food can wait for a second."

He looks at her. "We're having a baby."

"Yeah, we are," she says.

"You have to stop taking those buds," he says.

"I haven't been taking them for months. I'm sorry I was lying to you."

"You've talked to Janet?"

"Yeah, I've talked to Janet. I'm taking care of our baby."

He moves close to her again, and puts a hand on her stomach, "We're having a baby."

She smiles at him, "Yeah, we are."

He smiles back at her.

"We're going to have three very little kids," she says with a giggle.

"No kidding," he says with a nervous laugh.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"You know what? I'm not. I didn't want this to happen. I was scared. I still am, if I'm honest. But we're having a baby that is a mix of you and me. And that is a beautiful thing. I'm not sorry."

"I was scared you'd be mad. But I swear, I didn't try for this to happen. I took those buds every single day until I knew I was having a baby."

"I wasn't doubting you."

"So, is that offer to get food still good? I'm sort of craving fruit."

"What kind of fruit?"

"Surprise me."

Charlie stumbles over to the couch, and tries to pull himself up on Sam. "Ma? Owie?"

"No, sweetie, Mommy is fine," Sam assures her.

"Hey, hiding it didn't stop me from worrying, what makes you think it's going to stop our son from worrying," Jack warns.

"I'm not sure how to explain this to a two year old," Sam says uncertainly.

"Charlie, Mommy has a baby growing in side of her. It's going to make her sick sometimes. But she's going to be all right. And in a long time, we are going to have a new sister or brother."

Charlie's brow furrows with confusion.

"The baby is growing right here," Sam says taking Charlie's hand, and placing it on her stomach.

"Bad baby," Charlie says.

Jack smiles, "No, the baby isn't bad because it's making Mommy sick. All babies make their mothers sick, and it isn't their fault. You made your Mommy sick when you were inside of her too."

Charlie moves the hand from Sam's stomach to her face, "So'y," he stammers.

Sam looks at Jack with horror in her eyes.

"Charlie, you didn't actually grow inside of Sam's stomach. You had a different mother," Jack explains.

"A'e?" he asks.

"No, not Sha're," Jack says, "Your first mom, she's… gone, Charlie."

"Where?" the little boy asks.

Sam sits up, ignoring the dizziness, and takes the kid into a hug. "Sweetie, it's ok, I'm your Mommy now. I love you. You're Daddy and I both love you."

Jack doesn't want to leave the conversation like this. He wants to honor Sara. He wants to explain death to Charlie. But the kid is just too young. He's not even two years old. All of that can wait until the kid is older. Right now, the kid just needs reassurance. "Yeah, Charlie. We love you." He stands up. "Ok, I'm going to go get Mommy some fruit."

Cassie lets out a cry from her spot on the floor. Sam tries to stand up to get the baby, but Jack puts his hand up.

"I'll get the baby, and then get you some fruit. You just sit back and relax."


	17. In which Sam Learns to Sew

**Authors Note: swear words, violence, and general horror and gore warnings on this.**

"Sam, oh Ra, please tell me you are home, Sam!" a scream at the door says.

"Janet?" Sam says in surprise as she opens the door.

Janet pushes past the open door, and closes it behind her. She pulls the oversized timber they use to protect the door from intruders, over the door.

"What's going on?" Sam asks, staring in horror at Janet's bloody dress.

"Are all the other doors locked? I can't let him find me! Not now."

"Just a second," Sam says, running to lock the back door. "Are you ok?" she asks again.

"You have to help me have my baby," Janet pleads.

"I'll get Sha're… or someone who knows what they're doing," Sam says.

"No, there isn't any time. Sam, please. You need to get some alcohol, and drop a needle, some thread, and a knife, too."

"It's too early for you to be having a baby."

"I know. You know what, I'll get the stuff sanitized. You get some blankets you don't care about."

"Janet, I can't do this."

"Sam, please, I need you."

"Right, blankets, needles…" Sam says, trying to calm herself.

-0-0-0-

Janet is sitting on the edge of the bed, on Jack's side. Sam sits on the floor beneath her. Her two kids are in a crib (although Charlie informed her he was too old to be put in a crib during the day) in the hallway right outside the room. Sam wanted something that was far enough away that they couldn't hear Janet's yells, but close enough that she could hear any sound they made. Unfortunately, no such distance exists.

"I see the head," Sam says.

Janet's only response is a gutteral yell.

"What am I supposed to do?" Sam pleads.

"You need to catch it, Sam."

Another push, and the head is in her arms. Sam can already tell that there is something wrong. Something horribly wrong. The baby isn't moving. Janet pushes again, and Sam catches the still and silent baby in her own dress. She suddenly doesn't want to touch the death.

"Bring it up to me," Janet pleads, extending her hands toward it.

"Janet…" Sam says, trying to figure out how exactly she is going to tell Janet that her baby is dead.

Sam looks at Janet's face, and knows that she already knows, "Sam, give him to me now. I might be able to save him."

Sam is sure that's isn't true. This doesn't feel like a fresh dead. But she hands the baby over. Janet starts alternating between touching its tiny chest with her fingers, and putting her mouth over the baby's mouth.

"Janet, there is something else coming out of you," Sam tells her with terror.

"I know, Sam, it's just the afterbirth. It's normal."

By the time Sam catches the afterbirth, she's getting pretty concerned about Janet's actions with the baby. Janet has to know that it's not going to work. She does know that, right?

Sam isn't sure how much blood loss is normal, but she figures it's got to be less than this. This certainly can't be a healthy amount.

"Janet, you're bleeding. You're bleeding a lot."

There is no response.

"Janet," Sam says, pulling Janet's face to focus her eyes on Sam. She leaves a trace of blood across Janet's cheek, but neither notices. "Look at me. You're bleeding way too much. What do I do?"

"Get the needle and thread from the alcohol. And you have to sew me up."

"Sew? I don't know how to sew."

"You're kidding me. You don't know how to sew? You've got to be the only wife in the history of wives that doesn't know how to sew," Janet says with a laugh.

"It's not funny. You're going to die, and it's going to be my fault," Sam says, barely holding her hysteria back.

"I'm not going to die. You're going to go get the needles, and you're going to stich me up. You're going to be awesome at it."

Sam nods, even though she doesn't believe a word of it. She grabs the needle.

"Janet, I literally don't know how to thread one of these things," Sam protests.

"Ok, I'll thread it, you pump on his chest three times, and then breath into his mouth," Janet instructs.

Sam nods her head and takes the baby, even though she's certain the action is futile. A few seconds later, they trade back, and Sam is in possession of the needle.

Janet lays back on the bed. "Ok, Sam, you have to look for the place where the blood is coming from."

"Look… just like look inside of you?" Sam asks in horror.

"Sam, you just delivered my baby. You've touched me there, you can look at me. You can look inside me, and find where I'm bleeding from."

And Sam notices that in Janet's efforts to help her stop the bleeding, she's stopped the strange actions on the baby. Instead, she's just holding him close to her heart.

"Ok, I see it," she says.

"Now, you just sew it closed. Just stick the needle in one part, and through the other part you want to go together," Janet says, miming the action in the air.

"Ok," Sam says, tentatively putting the needle through the tender flesh. Janet flitches. "Oh, Ra, I'm so sorry, Janet, I did it wrong."

"No, sweetie, you didn't do it wrong. It's going to hurt. You still need to do it."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"But you need to," Janet says, locking eyes with her.

"Right," Sam says, realizing her squeamishness is wasting time. Time that Janet might not have. She deliberately shoves the needle through more flesh, drawing the rip closed. Another stich, and another, and the cut is closed, and the bleeding has stopped.

"You did it," Janet says.

"I did," Sam says in shock.

-0-0-0-

Five minutes later, the umbilical cord is cut, and the bloody blankets are soaking. The children are checked on. Sam takes a blanket. "Janet, can you hand me the baby?"

Janet shakes her head.

"Janet, I just want to wrap him," she explains. She already knows that for some reason she isn't going to be able to separate Janet from her dead son.

"He doesn't need to stay warm," Janet says coolly.

"I know, but if you're going to hold him, he might as well be fuzzy," Sam says. Desperately trying to make something that was not funny into a joke.

Janet nods.

Sam takes the baby, and wraps him with reverence. Then she hand him back to his mother. "Janet, can I ask you… about the locked doors."

Janet sighs, "He's going to kill me."

"Yeah, he better not, after I saved you," Sam jokes. Then she looks at Janet's face, "Oh, Ra, you're not kidding. Who?"

"My… husband. He caused me to go into early labor."

"How?" Sam presses.

Janet didn't answer.

"He beat you?"

Janet lets out a little sob.

"He killed your son," Sam accuses with anger.

"Next time it's going to be me."

"Janet," Sam says in shock, "You're not going back to him."

"He owns me, Sam."

"I don't care, he's not going to kill you."

"My baby died, it doesn't matter what happens to me," Janet says, tearing up again. Sam put her arm around her friend and tires desperately to think of something that would help this conversation.

She thought delivering a baby was hard, but that's nothing compared to this.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a voice coming from the other side of a thick door, "Sam, let me in! What's with the locked door?"

"Janet, I have to…" Sam says.

"Right," she nods.

"You're alone, right, honey?" Sam asks through the door.

"Yeah," Jack says, his stomach sinking. What is his wife afraid of?

He opens the door and sees her dress soaked in blood. "Sam," he says in a panicked voice.

She falls into her arms crying.

"I should get Janet, right?" he says, trying to push her away.

"Janet's here," she says confused.

"It's… over?" he asks.

She nods.

"You should rest," he says, pulling out of her grasp, and lifting the heavy bolt to escape into the backyard.

He collapses on the deck. He stares into space willing himself not to think.

Sam sits down next to him in silence for a while. She wants to give him time to process. But they've already left the kids alone for longer than they should have. And she really needs to make sure that Janet's bleeding hasn't started again. She doesn't have the time to pussyfoot around her husband's emotions right now. "Honey, I need your help. Janet won't let go of the baby. I need you to go get it from her."

"I can't see it, Sam."

"Ok, but she can't keep clinging to it. It's not healthy."

He stares at her, confused.

"Why is Janet clinging to our baby?"

"Oh, Ra, Jack! No, our baby is fine. Janet lost her baby."

Jack starts to cry, and she wraps her arms around him, "I'm so sorry, Jack. I didn't even think."

"You're covered in blood," he points out.

"I know, there was a lot of blood. I had to sew her up, Jack. It was terrifying. I almost lost her, and the baby was gone before it was born. But listen, we should probably get inside, in case her husband shows up."

"Her husband?"

"Yeah, he's the reason she went into premature labor."

"How?" Jack asks with concern in his voice.

"He beat her," Sam says, as if that were obvious.

"He beat her, does he do this regularly?" Jack asks.

Sam nods. Janet made her promise not to tell, but she doesn't care.

Jack stands up, and starts walking toward the street with deliberation.

"No, Jack, no! What are you planning on doing? Jack, stop! You can't… Stop!" she pleads, running in front of him until he hits the property line.

She can't go farther, because there are two tiny children and a women who just gave birth depending on her. So she just goes into the house, bolts the door, and starts taking care of them.

-0-0-0-

"Hey, you're Janet's husband, right?" Jack asks the man who answers the door of the address he'd memorized in case of emergency. He kicks himself for never having visited Janet's house before. Maybe if he had seen her at home, he would have known. Then he could have protected her.

"Yeah, you know where that bitch is?"

Jack holds back his tongue. "I want to buy her."

"Dude, she's pregnant."

"I'd give the baby to you," Jack replies, knowing this is standard procedure for buying a pregnant wife. And having every intent to follow through in the most shocking and offensive way possible.

"Depends what you're offering. That bitch is a healer. She cures all kinds of sickness."

Jack holds up an offer. He knows it's high enough to end objection.

The man grins at him, and pulls out a form to make the transaction. The second that it's, signed the man sneers. "You just made a raw deal, man. That bitch sobs every time you fuck her."

And then, with the contract safely in hand, Jack punched him in the face. It's hard enough that, even with perfect form, Jack worries he might have broken his hand. The man is unconscious on the floor.

It's not enough. Nothing will ever be enough.


	18. Concerning Sister Wives

"Sam, I'm alone. Open up," Jack shouts through the door.

Sam was really hoping she would have time to change out the bloody dress before he got back. But instead she fed Cassie, and comforted Charlie, wiped a bloody stillborn baby down, and checked on a Janet five times.

"Jack, you're back," she says.

"Yeah, I need to see Janet, is she… dressed?"

"Yeah," Sam says carefully.

Jack moves past her into the master bedroom where Sam has set Janet up. Since Jack is with Janet, Sam decides this would be a good time to quickly change her dress. She moves to the dresser that migrated into Jack's room one day a few weeks after she'd made the migration herself.

"Janet, how come you never told me what an ass your husband was?" Jack asks.

"I told you about… bread mold and my labels."

"Right, but you didn't tell me he beat you, and made sex so bad you cried every time," Jack says plainly.

Any idea Sam had to escaping and leaving them alone for this conversation is gone.

"It just… you didn't need to know," Janet whispers.

"Janet, I would have bought you a long time ago, had I known," Jack says.

"Hold it, you bought her?" Sam says in shock.

Janet stares at Jack with a mix of relief and horror.

"Ok, calm down, this isn't what you think it is. Janet, I don't actually want to marry you," Jack says.

"But you _are_ married to her, just to clarify," Sam points out.

"Yeah, we are. But my plan is to move Cassie into our room, and give you that room. I won't be visiting your bedroom, Janet. You can go about resistance business. I'll make no wifely demands on you at all. If you want to do a little child care when you're not too busy, we'd appreciate it, but it's not necessary," Jack says.

Sam grabs a clean dress, and makes her way to the bathroom. She needs to talk to Jack privately. She doesn't want her friend to hear the things that she is going to say to him. And if she stays in this room much longer she is going to scream at Jack.

"Do I get to negotiate any of these terms, or do you just own me?" Janet asks.

"I don't want you to feel like I own you."

"But you do, you _do_ own me, Jack."

"Tell me what you want out of this marriage, and we'll talk about it," Jack says.

"I want to be a mother," Janet says directly.

"Janet, Sam and I… Ne'tu, I'm not going to have sex with you."

"That's great, I hate sex. I mean I want to be a mother to your kids. You know, change diapers, feed them, teach them things, make decisions about their lives."

"I'd have to talk to Sam, they're her kids, too."

"Of course," Janet says.

"I can guarantee that I will never hit you or sell you to anyone you don't want to be sold to."

"So this is temporary?"

"Only if you want it to be."

"'Cause I trust you, Jack. I don't trust most men. So I want to know if this is a temporary haven or a permanent salvation."

"Janet, if you leave, it's going to be because you found something better. You will never go from here to something worse."

"Jack, I can't thank you enough. I'm going to find a way to pay you back."

"Please, Janet, you've saved my life enough times to cover a bride price," he laughs. He sees the baby still clutched to her chest. "I'm sorry about your baby, Janet," he says sincerely.

She just stares at him. It's a look he's only seen before in the mirror, right after Sara died.

"I'm going to need him, though," Jack says.

"What?" Janet asks.

"It's part of a standard marriage contract," Jack says.

"No," Janet says, clutching the baby closer to her chest, "_He_ does not get _my _baby."

"Janet, that's not really your son, your son is gone. That is just a body."

"He does not get him!" Janet exclaims.

"Ok, I'll go renegotiate, tell him that he's dead or whatever, but he needs to be… buried, Janet. You can't just hold him."

Janet nods her head, and passes the baby to him softly, never breaking eye contact.

-0-0-0-

"Daddy," Charlie says, reaching up from the crib as his father walks by.

"Hey, Bud," Jack says, scooping him up.

"Screams," Charlie says.

Jack's eyebrows shoot up. The kid looks traumatized. "Was Janet screaming?"

The boy nods his head, and buries it into his father's shoulder.

"Hey, it's ok, Charlie," Jack assures, him rubbing his back softly. "Janet had a baby, and it hurts, but she's ok now."

"Bad baby," Charlie moans.

"No sweetie, all babies hurt their mommies when they're born."

"Where baby?" he asks with his eyebrows close together.

Jack takes a sharp breath. He hates the world for making him explain this to a tiny baby. "The baby died."

"Where?" Charlie asks.

"He's gone."

"Ja'et no 'ead?" the boy asks.

"No, she's fine."

"'Ere?" the boy asks.

"Yes, she's still here."

"'iss 'etter," Charlie demands.

"Well, sweetie, how about you let me ask if she want you to kiss it better?" he says.

Charlie nods his head, pretty confident that no one is going to say no to this offer. Jack pokes his head in the door, and can see that Janet certainly isn't going to say no to this.

"Be gentle with her, especially around her stomach," Jack warns as he sits his son down on the bed.

"Owie?" he asks Janet.

"Yeah, sorry I scared you, little man."

"'ere owie?" Charlie asks.

Uh-oh, Jack hadn't thought of that. His son is definitely not going to kiss Sam's sewing job.

"Right here," Janet says, pointing to her still larger than normal stomach.

Charlie leans forward and smacks her dress with a big slobbery kiss.

"Thank you," Janet says with genuine appreciation. "Can you do something else to make me feel better?"

The kid nods eagerly.

"Can you cuddle me for a while?" Janet asks Charlie, giving Jack a smile.

It's a genius move, because the kid does need comfort. And Janet needs a kid around her right now.

Jack moves out to the kitchen. Sam is feeding Cassie. "Sam, I need to go out…"

"No," she says, and he is surprised to see fury behind her eyes.

"I was just going to tell work that Janet's address has changed in case there is an emergency."

"An emergency? Are you kidding me? She can't deal with an emergency right now! You know what… we're having an emergency, in case you didn't notice. I did surgery today, Jack. And then you came, and just left!"

"To save her!" he says.

"To marry her!"

"Yes, to marry her, so her abusive husband wouldn't come batter someone's brains in."

Sam crumbles, "You married her."

"Oh, Ra, Sam! I didn't really marry her. Separate bedrooms, and…"

"A bunch of other things you said when _we_ got married."

"Sam…"

"Jack, we're going to have this fight when one of us is not holding a baby. But I have news for you. Work can wait for tomorrow. I need you here. You have to bury a baby."

"We can't do that yet, technically it's her husband's baby."

"What?" Sam says in horror.

"Can I go fix that, or do you need me to do something else?" he asks softly, humbly. When he was married to Sara, he told her she could make decisions in the marriage. Sam actually took him up on the offer. She probably would have done that even if he hadn't offered.

She was a strong one, this wife of his, but she had been dealing with things that were way out of her experience range all day. She needs his help right now, and he should have noticed that.

"You can go, but make it quick."

He leans forward to give her a kiss. "I'm not going to fall in love with Janet."

She believes him suddenly, when his lips were close to her ear. "Don't you dare give that ass Janet's baby."

"Not happening," he promises.

"And don't sleep with her," Sam adds.

"I promise you," he says, looking into Sam's eyes.

-0-0-0-

Sam looks in Janet's room to find two sleeping forms. She gently lifts up Charlie to carry him back to his room. Janet's eyes open, "I'm sorry, Sam."

"What are you talking about?" Sam asks.

"You didn't want a sister wife," Janet says plainly.

"It's not like… it's not a real marriage," Sam says, hoping that Janet believes this. If she doesn't, if she doesn't want this, then she is royally screwed. Sam had made the marriage real even though Jack didn't want it. Janet would certainly be capable of doing the same thing.

"I know, but it's still… sharing your house, your kitchen, your children."

"Children?" Sam asks.

"Ah, Jack didn't get a chance to talk to you about that yet," Janet says awkwardly.

"He agreed to give you our kids?" Sam says in horror.

"He didn't give them to me. I want to co-parent with you. I'll take extra diaper duty."

Sam remembers that this is how it started with her. At first, she was just going to be Charlie's mother.

"I love him," Sam confesses.

"Charlie."

"Him, too."

Janet smiles at her, "Honey, I'm honestly trying not to steal your husband."

"He's your husband, too," Sam says with tears brimming in her eyes.

"Sam, I hate men. Jack, he's a good one. One I can actually imagine myself being a friend with. But I don't want anything romantic. I have been burned by the romance."

"But after you recover…" Sam hedges.

"I'm pretty sure this isn't the sort of thing you recover from. But if I do recover, it won't be with the man you love. I wouldn't do that to you."

Sam trusts her. This is going to be ok.

"But if you don't want me to have a hand in raising your kids…"

"No, if it's really just being a parent, I want it. I mean, we have a lot of really young children, I'd be a fool not to accept help. Jack grew up in polygamy, you know, and he talked about how good it is to have more than two adults to raise your kids. Only…"

Janet raise her eyebrows.

"It's not really fair to you," Sam says softly.

"Sam, the chances of me being a mother are small. You giving me the chance at being a parent… that is a wonderful gift. I'm not getting cheated out of anything."


	19. In which fears are vanquished

There is giggling coming from the living room. Janet giggles? He knew that Sam giggled, but usually he or his fingers were the cause of her giggling. He wasn't sure how comfortable he was with Janet making her giggle. Although… it might be interesting.

He enters the room, and the two of them are bending over a piece of paper.

"What's going on?"

"We're just coming up with some plans to defeat the Goa'uld, sir," Janet replies.

"And what about that is funny?" he asks.

"Well, at first the plans were serious," Sam says.

"But somewhere along the line they got a little bit goofy."

He leans over the paper to read it. "You're going to pants Ra?"

The girls giggle.

"You realize that he doesn't wear pants," Jack points out.

"You wouldn't know what he was wearing under that skirt," Janet points out.

"So would he even notice if he was pantsed?" Jack asks.

"Is he always this much of a wet blanket?" Janet asks, turning to Sam.

"No, usually it's me playing straight man to him," she says with a grin, "You ok, babe?"

Jack doesn't miss the possessive language. He decides to reassure her, and puts an arm around her back drawing her close. "Kids are still napping?" he asks, kissing her cheek.

"It's my fault, sir; Sam was working on a project, and I put them down for their nap half an hour late," Janet says a little apologetically.

"That's fine, the schedule is not sacred. You're their mother, too; you can put them down for a nap whenever you think its best. And I think you'd better lay off the 'sir'. We're married, Janet." he says, calming her down.

-0-0-0-

Sam holds onto Jack's hands under the covers late at night. Somehow, this action seems more intimate than the 'intimacy' they'd just shared.

"Jack."

"Mmmm?"

"Never mind."

Jack rolls over to look into her eyes. Then his other hand moves hair from her face. "What is it, sweetie?"

"It's stupid. You are the master of strategy. You've been on a lot of missions. I don't even know what you do, really…"

"So you have an idea to help the resistance?" he asks.

"Yeah, but before I tell you, I want to be clear that I don't want you to be involved in this mission."

"Why is that so important?"

"Because I don't want you to think I'm trying to kill you off."

"That bad, huh?" Jack asks.

"Yeah, but it might just change the universe," she whispers.

"Let's hear it."

"Ra receives the tribute personally, at the harvest festival, right?" Sam prompts.

Jack nods his head.

"And this mineral, it's highly explosive. Janet gave me a little bit of it to work with. I was trying to make a way to detect the mineral. That didn't actually work out. But I did discover that it is by far the most explosive substance known by man."

He locks eyes with her, "You want to kill Ra."

"Not just Ra. The average tribute box could contain enough to blow up a whole ship. Even more."

"That's a bold plan."

"It's presumptuous," she says, looking down.

"Sammy, there are other gods," he says.

She's confused by the blasphemy. Not so much that Jack is blaspheming, but that he's blaspheming there being more gods instead of no gods.

"What are you talking about?"

"Ra doesn't want us to know, but there are hundreds of Goa'ulds out there."

"Right; I met Ba'al."

"Well, not all Goa'ulds serve Ra. Most do, but there are a few who have their own kingdoms."

"Ok," Sam says slowly, not quite understanding where this conversation is going.

"If we kill Ra, another one is going to take his place. The new one might be even worse."

Sam stares at him for a long moment before she says, "Ok, then what's the point?"

"Excuse me?" he says.

"Why are we risking our lives? Our kids' lives? If there is no way that we can win this one, we should pack it in. We should just keep our heads down and try not to get noticed."

Jack knew this day that is coming. It was the price of having a wife, they would ask you to give up everything that you had ever wanted.

"You want me to quit," he says sadly. He doesn't want to quit. But he thinks he might love her so much that he might just do it. If she bugs him enough.

"Jack, I would never tell you to quit," she says, confused.

He stares at her, her sacrificing makes him want to sacrifice all the more. "What do you want, Sammy."

"I want hope, you know, rebellion. A chance to kick their smarmy asses out of the galaxy once and for all."

"They've been trying to do that for hundreds of years, Sam."

"I know, and I don't exactly expect that this is going to happen in the next couple of years. I just want to know that it can happen. That we can win."

He never really believed those myths. You know, the ones where the humans win. The ones full of freedom and life and joy. But he looks at Sam, and he needs a chance of a world without Goa'uld.

"I want rebellion to be a reality," he says.

"But it's not," she says."

"Help me figure it out, Sammy. Help me end them," he says, wiping a band of hair away from his forehead.

"I don't know anything about strategy or…"

"And yet you brought their technology to a stop."

"That was chance."

"That was genius. I want to give our kids," he says, putting a hand on her stomach, "A world where there are no Goa'uld.

-0-0-0-

Sam opens the door to see Farida behind it. "Sha'uri is having her baby. I'll help you bring the kids over. I'm watching all of them."

Janet walks up behind her new sister wife, and puts a hand on her shoulder, "Sam, you have to come. Sha're's sister wives can take care of the kids."

"No, you can handle this one," Sam says. She is terrified being part of another birth.

"You have to get back on the horse. You're going to be having a baby before long. You have to get over your fear before that. Remember what I told you when you first found out that you were pregnant, most labors go well. There is a little pit of pain, and a little bit of screaming, and then a brand new baby enters the world. It's a miracle, and you are going to come and witness it."

Sam nods her head, with plans to slip out of the room as soon as the women become distracted enough with the process going on before them.

-0-0-0-

"Sam," Sha're yells as soon as Sam enters the room.

"Janet's here!" Sam says, figuring that in labor, a doctor is a more precious commodity than a best friend.

"Come here, and hold me up," Sha're says, pointing behind herself. She's sitting on the bed, and her back really does look like it needs some support. Sam figures she can probably do that, it is on the easy side of the woman in labor after all. "Dan'yel was supposed to do it. On my planet, the husband holds his wife," she sobs.

"Ok, so why isn't he doing it?" Sam asks.

"On Earth, men think childbirth is woman's business. And it's Farida's day."

"You're kidding, right?" Sam says in shock.

"In polygamy it's important to keep to a schedule," Sha're defends.

"Well, you'll train the next baby to be born on your day. Meanwhile, I'm going to get your husband in here."

"Stop, Sam, don't interfere," Sha're pleads, but the words are lost on her.

"Daniel!" she says, coming out into the living room.

"Is something wrong?" he asks, popping up from the couch with his face going white in terror.

She feels sorry for scaring him, "She's fine. But she is having your baby, and she really wants you to be there."

He rocks awkwardly on his feet uncertainly. "I know that in her culture…"

"I don't care about culture, and I don't care about whatever kind of rules you and your wives have figured out to keep the peace. Here is what I do care about. You got your wife pregnant. She's bringing your child in the world with a whole bunch of pain to herself. She wants you to sit behind her, and support her as she does this amazing things. You sure as hell are going to do that."

He stares at her, open-mouthed.

"Move, Daniel," she says firmly.

He glances at Farida. He knows that he is going to have to pay for this later with her, but he doesn't care.

Sha're is in middle of a contraction when Daniel enters the room, but she still breaks into a grin. When the contraction is over, she reaches toward him, "It means a lot to me that you came, but you don't have to be here. I know what it means for you to be here."

"I'll deal with Farida," he says, moving behind her.

She leans back against him, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be, you deserve this, you deserve everything," he says, kissing her forehead, "I love you so much. I couldn't love you more."

But everyone in the room knew it was a lie.

He could love her more, and he probably should.

-0-0-0-

"It's a daughter," Janet says as she raises a baby up and puts it into Daniel's hands. Sha're gives her husband a quick glance to see if there is disappointment on his face. Instead, she is met with a wide grin.

"I've waited a long time for you, little one," he whispers to his daughter.

"Dan'yel, you have other daughters," Sha're says, confused.

"I know, but they're not yours," he says, giving her another kiss at her forehead.

"I'm sorry I couldn't give you one sooner," she whispers.

"Oh Sha're, I'm sorry I wasn't more patient."

And for one moment they are honest with one another, if only with their eyes.


End file.
